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Published Sunday, December 26, 2010 in Close-Up

Internet connects Californians with family cemetery near Senoia

By Lindsay Wood

The Newnan Times-Herald

Situated deep in the woods off Gordon Road in east Coweta County, a graveyard with only a single marked headstone holds the remains of one of Senoia's oldest families: the Nixons.

Samuel Nixon, a Confederate Civil War veteran, is the only known individual buried there -- in 1899. But Wilbur Nixon III, Samuel's great- great-nephew, speculates about 17 other family members and possibly slaves were also buried in this clearing beside a large, moss-covered boulder. The CSA marble headstone faces east as do the other flat rocks protruding from the ground -- indicating that someone lies beneath.

While the cemetery is recorded in Coweta County's cemetery book, named as "143 unknown," only a few people have stumbled across it.

Sharon Kadlick, a genealogy hobbyist, was introduced to the plot when her husband found it a few years ago while hunting nearby. He took her down the dirt road into the woods off Gordon Road, and she took photographs of the area to post online at findagrave.com. From there, Valerie Freeman of Tustin, Calif., found the cemetery pictures while researching her husband's family background who included the Nixons of Coweta County.

"I've been researching my husband's side of the family since 2003," Freeman said. "It all started with a family Bible and family lore."

Valerie's husband, Bob, was excited to find out the histories of his ancestors, but especially so when the experience became real, Valerie said. He was able to walk around the property once owned by his great-great-great-great-great grandfather, and find the place his great-great-great-grandfather, Harrison Nixon, was buried in Snow Spring, Ga.

The Freemans are related to the Nixons on Bob's maternal side through his mother, Janet Lanier Nixon Freeman Anderson. Bob's grandfather, Otis Florence Nixon Jr., and more than three generations past make up Bob's direct bloodline in Coweta County. According to Valerie, records indicate that the Nixon family has been in the Senoia area since 1836.

Wilbur Nixon III, 73, was also excited to fill in the missing parts of his family's history. Nixon had never seen the Samuel Nixon cemetery until Kadlick took him there. We thought it was in a different place entirely, he said. Two more cemeteries hold the remains of his relatives: Bethel Methodist Cemetery and the Delk-Nixon Cemetery, both located off Luther Bailey Road in Senoia.

Nixon says he believes his distant relatives came to Coweta County to claim stakes in the land lottery. He has traced his family's records all the way back to Ireland when Joseph Nixon arrived in 1794. Joseph and his wife Amelia are said to have been buried in Bethel Cemetery, but the graves are unmarked. Harrison Nixon was also Wilbur's great-great-grandfather.

"I've found that Wilbur and my husband are related in about 29 different ways," Valerie says. "It's a little strange, but that's how families were back then."

Since then, the Nixons remained in the area as farmers. Wilbur grew up outside of Harralson during "a simpler time," he said. Now he resides in the Starrs Mill area.

Wilbur has researched much of his family's history and came across a website called Cyndi's List, www.cyndislist.com, that helped him start recovering more genealogy information.

Kadlick, who has studied many of Coweta's families, recommends searching old census records, city directories, military records, newspapers, church and marriage records and websites like ancestry.com to find out more on a particular family history. "It just depends on what you want to know," she says. "Sometimes you run into a brick wall, but then you just try a different avenue."

"I've learned more about history through genealogy than any history class in high school or college I took," Kadlick said.

"Ask questions of your oldest relatives, not just who were their parents, but what do they remember about their childhood -- what was it like," Valerie said. "And write down what you do know. Sometimes the littlest thing, like 'they came to Colorado by ox train in 1867' can be a big lead. Also, have them identify any folks they can in old family photos."