Jim Panttaja’s Genealogy Research

World Vital Records has been adding databases at a dizzying rate (They say they have thousands of databases, and hope to add 10,000 in the next few months). Often they are available to everyone who accesses the site for free for a period of time. But it is only $49.95 for a two year subscription to the service – and it is well worth the price. In the last couple of weeks, they announced access to Find A Grave. Although you could find this, and search it yourself, I hadn’t found it… And the access to this data through World Vital Records does not require you to pay a fee to World Vital Records. I looked up one of my problem ancestors, Noah Scudder. It found him on the Find A Grave site – and not only identified where his grave is (something I already knew – in the Pleasant Hill Cemetery in Chester, New Jersey), but it also showed a picture of the head stone. It also has his wife, Chloe Topping Scudder. Here is the link to Noah Scudder in World Vital Records, that you can click on to get the data at Find A Grave.

Of course I could just go to Find A Grave, but with World Vital Records, as new sources are available, a look up will find those new sources as well.

A search of the Pleasant Hill cemetery records at Find A Grave, yielded the following:  Entries for Noah, Chloe, and their children Harriet, Joseph S., Sophia and William. It is interesting that Harriet had married James Howell - but is buried as Harriet Scudder. James had gone to California and died in Plumas County California in 1854. Harriet’s son Matthias, and brother Jacob also went to California. There is also an entry for their daughter Nancy Scudder Drake.

There are a total of 510 entries for Scudders at Find A Grave.