-Visiting Jackson County again (?)...need any place or headstone photos?
Nothing is planned yet, but I do certainly hope I can make a trip to the historical society and Jackson/Lakefield area this fall. This year, I have had 2 Grandparents pass away and one Grandmother move about 90-miles closer to me. I no longer have more immediate relatives left to visit in Jackson county on a regular basis. Unfortunately, times change and this means fewer trips to the area for me. However, due to my roots in the county, I do hope to make an occasional visit there every now and then when possible. Anticipating making one of these visits before winter sets in, I want to give a potential heads-up to anyone who may want any photos taken. I generally plan to stop in Jackson at the (Good Shepard/Riverside Cemeteries) to visit the burial locations of my Grandparents and other relatives, as well as in Lakefield. If you are looking for a headstone photo(s) and you know where I can look, I'm more than happy to take some photos. The same goes for places or landkmarks as well. As for headstones...due to my route and hours planned, I do not always get to the historical society before visiting the cemeteries, so I will not necessarily be able to look up exact burial locations. Unless you know where I should look, most of my headstone-seeking involves just driving around and hoping I spot the name on an upright headstone as I pass through. I have searched for burial locations before and this hit-and-miss method takes up a lot of valuable time so any clues will help me. Nonetheless, just email me what you're interested in and I'll do my best. Any photos I take will simply be emailed to you.

-Cemetery pages updated.
Be sure to click on the -Cemeteries- page and scroll down to see which cemeteries are linked to individual pages. I am gradually adding headstone photos to the pages as I get them. Thanks to the latest photos received from Joanne Meyer! I am slowly getting through the uploads as I get the pages configured, so check back often. If you have any scanned headstone images, feel free to email them to me. Note that it can often take me some time to get them uploaded since I configure all pages on this website "manually." I use no website software...just good old-fashioned editing and photo configuring and uploading, etc. Also note occasionally I may crop photo content if there is unneeded background or "grass" around the headstone photo...my attempt to reduce the unnecessary file-size of the photos to help increase download speeds and reduce space needed on the server. Keep those headstone pictures coming!

-Additional museum hours added
Jackson Co Historical Society and Museum Director Michael Kirchmeier has informed me that the museum will be open Saturday mornings in addition to the normal weekday hours. If you're in the area on a weekend, you can visit the museum from 8am-12noon on Saturdays!

-Thanks to Martin Co Genealogical Society!
My thanks to Jackson Co neighbors Dona Paris and the Martin Co Genealogical Society for the obituaries! The society has cut obit clippings and taped them to index cards of those with ties to Jackson County dating back to the early 1900's. They have gone through them and mailed the last bundle of them to me of which I will forward to the Jackson Co Historical Society which will be filed in the family files kept at the museum. In the last bundle I even found 5 obits of my relatives...some which I did not previously have. Thanks to the society members who contributed to clipping and indexing these cards and mailing them to us!

-New banner on top of pages
Rootsweb.com provides free webspace to host these genealogy pages which comes with a minimal cost...banners! In late May 2008, a more obvious banner was added to all free website pages. Depending on on your display settings, it may cause the pages to display wider which may cause the need to move your lower scroll bar left or right to see the side of the pages. I have no control over their banner width but hopefully they can reconfigure the banner settings.

-Queries page added
A queries page has been added (see links at left of this page). On occasion, people may be interested in certain items of information that may not necessarily pertain to an all-out surname/family research project. Because of this, I have added the query page as a place for people to have a place to post inquiries of just about anything. I encourage everyone to take a minute to look over the page as well as emailing me with anything queries you would like to have posted. I have also received recent obits, histories, and photos. Take a look around and visit regularly...and...email me if you have items which may be of interest!

-Jackson Co Message Board
On the resources page I have included a new link to the Jackson Co message board. If you wish to subscribe to the messages via email, follow the simple directions noted at the bottom of the page. The board and email list is used by those seeking historical and genealogical information related to Jackson County.

-Roots Television online
A relatively new website has been online for some time called Roots Television and hosts many videos related to genealogy. If you've poked around the web enough, you've probably seen it, but for those who haven't...you should check it out. You will see some familiar faces in the genealogy sector and chances are you might just catch yourself spending a fair amount of time looking around at al the videos. You'll find just about everything covering many facets of genealogy and family history. To poke around the site, from the main page scroll down and mouse-over the various picture icons until you find a topic of interest. Have fun!

-Lakewood Cemetery, Minneapolis
Surprise! I always wanted to visit Lakewood Cemetery in south Minneapolis, so I thought I'd share a few photos. Not many fathers would spend a few hours on Fathers' Day visiting a cemetery out of mere curiosity, but it was a great and relaxing day which was a good opportunity to visit the cemetery I had heard about but never seen. I'm glad I went. Click here to visit my tour page.

Jackson County is bordered by the following counties
in this geographical arrangement:

Murray	Cottonwood	Watonwan
Nobles	Jackson County	Martin
Osceola Iowa	Dickinson Iowa	Emmet Iowa

Visitors since Oct 23, 2007