It’s time for the annual Southern Illinois Peach Road Trip! I wanted to get away for awhile, so I went to one of my favorite places — southern Illinois. Of course, I just wasn’t going there for peaches… I had to do some Genealogy sleuthing! I’m taking the NGS Home Study Course, and I wanted to do some researching for that as well, which needs to be done at the Washington Co. Courthouse.

 

I first stopped at Mt. Zion Cemetery (yes, again) to check on the Lawhorns. While taking some very lame photos (it was still too early in the morning for good gravestone photos), I saw a frog next to Great-great-grandma Mary (Goddard) Lawhorn’s gravestone!

 

 

I went next to Ashley Cemetery, Beaucoup Cemetery, then St. Ann’s Cemetery too. I had always wondered if the Schultz’s who are buried in the same area as Grandpa Ed Kult were related… so I decided to check on that while I was in Nashville.

 

One of the quests I was on was to find August Hochschulz’s naturalization papers, or a clue as to where to find them. Guess what! I found a clue! His final papers are in Washington County Circuit Clerk’s records, but his application was supposedly applied for in Cook County and were lost. What’s kinda cool about this paper I found though, is that it has August’s signature on it.

 

 

Notice there’s no “t” in Schulz… Evelyn Piotrowski told me there was no “t” in “Schulz”, and according to August’s signature, she was right (although his gravestone has the “t”, spelled “Schultz”).

 

I also found the probate records for great-great-grandpa J.F.M. Lee, and great-grandpa Leonard Kult.

 

 

I also found something somewhat disturbing which I won’t go into here, but it’s something I never knew before about my paternal grandmother. It’s a family skeleton that was hiding in a closet, and I think I’ll just keep it there for now.

 

After finishing up my research at the Washington County Courthouse, I decided to visit the Masonic Cemetery where JFM Lee and Walter Decker are buried. After that, I went back to St. Ann’s Cemetery, because I did find out that all of those Schultzs (with a “t”) are indeed related!

 

On the way back to the hotel, I decided to tour downtown Ashley and saw this interesting mural on the side of the post office:

 

 

All in all, a good GEN day!