Unlocking Family Histories: The Power of Cemetery Research

Week 40 – #52Ancestors project

Cemeteries hold a special place in every genealogist’s heart. These consecrated grounds preserve not just our ancestors’ remains but also their stories, carved in stone and recorded in burial registers. For researchers tracing immigrant communities who shaped American cities, cemeteries stand as monuments to millions of lives—and as treasure troves of genealogical data.

Finding death and burial records requires detective work that extends beyond cemetery gates. Trace your family forward through generations, following siblings and children who might lead you to burial plots. Cast a wide net across newspapers, searching not just major dailies but ethnic publications and neighborhood weeklies that announced funerals and listed mourners. Look in unexpected places—church bulletins, funeral home records, and obituary card collections in local historical societies. Property tax lists and city directories provide crucial clues, tracking when ancestors disappear from residential records and guiding you toward their final resting places.

Two free online cemetery databases make researching burial information easier than ever. Find a Grave® hosts over 250 million memorials contributed by volunteers worldwide, offering gravestone photographs, biographical information, and family connections that help researchers build their family trees.¹ BillionGraves® distinguishes itself by tagging every headstone photograph with GPS coordinates, enabling researchers to locate graves precisely within cemeteries and discover related burials nearby—a feature particularly valuable in large cemeteries where gravestones can be difficult to find.² Both platforms allow users to request photographs from local volunteers and contribute corrections to existing records, creating collaborative communities dedicated to preserving cemetery information for future generations.

My Families Rest in Brooklyn, Queens, and Johnstown

These cemeteries hold more than historical significance for me—they preserve my own family’s story across multiple generations, immigrant communities, and geographic regions. Walking through Holy Cross Cemetery means tracing my Irish Catholic roots, while Calvary Cemetery connects me to my Slovak ancestors who arrived decades later. Far from New York, the Byzantine Catholic cemeteries of Johnstown, PA preserve yet another branch of my Eastern European heritage.

The Plunketts: Irish Immigrants and Brooklyn Priests at Holy Cross

Holy Cross Cemetery in Brooklyn opened its gates on July 13, 1849, responding to an urgent crisis facing the city’s exploding Catholic population. Brooklyn’s Catholics had surged from 36,000 in 1840 to over 96,000 by 1850, with Irish immigrants fleeing the potato famine comprising more than half the foreign-born residents.³ Father James McDonough of St. James Church secured seventeen acres from the Van Brunt farm just weeks before the cemetery’s opening with the burial of Michael Moran, a cholera victim.⁴ The cemetery received 6,000 interments in its first year alone, serving Brooklyn’s predominantly Irish Catholic working class during the difficult years of mass immigration.⁵

My 2x great-grandfather Peter Plunkett (1829-1903) was part of this Irish exodus, emigrating from Ireland and establishing his family in Brooklyn. After his first wife Julia Smith Plunkett died in 1875, he remarried Anna Smith and raised a large family that produced two priests and multiple generations buried at Holy Cross. His sons Rev. Bernard Plunkett and Rev. Peter H Plunkett both entered the priesthood but died tragically young—Bernard at age 33 in 1883, Peter at exactly 30 in 1886.⁶

By 1860, Brooklyn’s population reached 266,000, with over 56,000 Irish-born residents—most of them poor, uneducated Catholics seeking new lives in America. Holy Cross grew from its original seventeen acres to ninety-six acres, eventually holding over 500,000 burials.⁷

Peter’s children and grandchildren clustered in the St. George section of Holy Cross. James Plunkett (1851-1915), Julia Plunkett (1868-1924), and Stephen G Plunkett (1869-1927) share adjoining graves in Range 3, Grave 53/54, while their sister Bridget Plunkett (1858-1950) rests nearby. The family experienced typical nineteenth-century tragedy: young Anne Plunkett died in 1865 at just four years old. One son, John W Plunkett (1853-1933), moved to Babylon and was buried at Saint Joseph Roman Catholic Cemetery, breaking from the family’s Brooklyn tradition.

When their infant grandson Peter Francis Dowling died in 1900, Peter and Anna buried him in their family plot at Range 33, Grave 7. Three years later Peter joined him, followed by Anna in 1909—a touching decision that suggests the child, likely named for his grandfather, held special significance to the family. Peter’s granddaughter Mary Plunkett (1870-1945) married Thomas Francis Dowling, linking two prominent Brooklyn Irish families and establishing the next chapter of my family’s story in Holy Cross.

Plunkett Family Burials at Holy Cross Cemetery

Name	Relationship	Dates	Location	Find a Grave Memorial ID
Peter Plunkett	2x great-grandfather	1829-1903	Range 33, Grave 7	94421119
Julia Smith Plunkett	2x great-grandmother	c.1825-1875	Holy Cross Cemetery	244803701
Anna Smith Plunkett	Step 2x great-grandmother	1848-1909	Range 33, Grave 7	94421176
Rev. Bernard Plunkett	Great-granduncle	1851-1883	St. Patrick Catacombs, Plot 20	129592244
Rev. Peter H Plunkett	Great-granduncle	1856-1886	Holy Cross Cemetery	244810091
James Plunkett	Great-granduncle	1851-1915	St. George, Range 3, Grave 53/54	138598069
Bridget Plunkett	Great-grandaunt	1858-1950	St. George, Range 3, Grave 53	174428622
Anne Plunkett	Great-grandaunt	1860-1865	Holy Cross Cemetery	244809641
Julia Plunkett	Great-grandaunt	1868-1924	St. George, Range 3, Grave 53/54	138598080
Stephen G Plunkett	Great-granduncle	1869-1927	St. George, Range 3, Grave 53/54	138598096
Mary Plunkett Dowling	Great-grandmother	1870-1945	Olive Square, Row C, Plot 32	172566094

Find a Grave® memorial IDs are provided for research reference. Detailed burial information documented through cemetery records, death certificates, and family research.⁸

Peter’s daughter from his second marriage, Letty B Plunkett Stender (1886-1956), was buried at Calvary Cemetery rather than Holy Cross, perhaps reflecting her husband’s family preferences.

The Dowlings: Generations in Olive Square at Holy Cross

Later sections of Holy Cross Cemetery reflect demographic shifts, dominated by Italian and Hispanic families who followed the Irish to Brooklyn.⁹ But the Dowling family remained steadfast in their Brooklyn roots, establishing their own dynasty at Holy Cross by gathering multiple generations in Olive Square, Row C, Plot 32.

William Dowling (d. 1893) and his wife Ellen McAuliffe Dowling (c.1841-1875) raised their children in Brooklyn during the difficult years following the Civil War. The family experienced heartbreaking losses—daughter Mary died at age three in 1871, and son Timothy died at eighteen months in 1876.

Their son Thomas Francis Dowling (1871-1944) married Mary Plunkett, my great-grandmother, creating an alliance between two established Irish Brooklyn families. Thomas and Mary raised their family in the early twentieth century, burying their infant son Peter Francis (1898-1900) in the Plunkett family plot in Range 33, Grave 7. Their surviving children scattered across Long Island and Westchester County cemeteries, though several siblings remained in the family plot: William F Dowling (1866-1917), Florence J Dowling (1867-1906), Ellen A Dowling (1871-1931), and infant Margaret Gwendolyn Dowling (1909-1910) all rest in Olive Square alongside their parents.

My grandmother Julia Elizabeth Dowling Sten (1907-1977) broke from Brooklyn tradition entirely, choosing burial alongside her husband David Sten (1908-1995), a World War II veteran, at Long Island National Cemetery in East Farmingdale. Her siblings similarly moved beyond Brooklyn: William Bernard Dowling rests at Assumption Cemetery in Cortlandt Manor, Marie A. Dowling Nieman at Cemetery of the Holy Rood in Westbury, and Gwendolyn T. Dowling at Saint John Cemetery in Middle Village.

Dowling Family Burials at Holy Cross Cemetery

Name	Relationship	Dates	Location	Find a Grave Memorial ID
William Dowling	2x great-grandfather	d. 1893	Olive Square, Row C, Plot 32	172562377
Ellen McAuliffe Dowling	2x great-grandmother	c.1841-1875	Holy Cross Cemetery	—
William F Dowling	Great-granduncle	1866-1917	Olive Square, Row C, Plot 32	172564632
Florence J Dowling	Great-granduncle	1867-1906	Olive Square, Row C, Plot 32	172543548
Mary Dowling	Great-grandaunt	1868-1871	Holy Cross Cemetery	—
Ellen A Dowling	Great-grandaunt	1871-1931	Olive Square, Row C, Plot 32	172543535
Thomas Francis Dowling	Great-grandfather	1871-1944	Olive Square, Row C, Plot 32	172566046
Mary Plunkett Dowling	Great-grandmother	1870-1945	Olive Square, Row C, Plot 32	172566094
Timothy Dowling	Great-granduncle	1874-1876	Holy Cross Cemetery	—
Peter Francis Dowling	Granduncle	1898-1900	Range 33, Grave 7	172563111
Margaret Gwendolyn Dowling	Grandaunt	1909-1910	Olive Square, Row C, Plot 32	172563973

Find a Grave® memorial IDs provided for research reference.

The Marcisaks: Slovak Immigrants at Calvary Cemetery

While my Irish ancestors filled Holy Cross Cemetery in Brooklyn, my Slovak great-grandparents joined the later wave of Eastern European immigration that made Calvary Cemetery in Queens their final resting place. Calvary stands as the largest cemetery in the United States by number of interments, holding approximately three million burials.¹²

The Trustees of Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral purchased 115 acres of the Alsop farm in 1845, recognizing that their Mulberry Street cemetery in Manhattan could no longer accommodate the waves of Catholic immigrants arriving at New York’s docks. Archbishop John Hughes consecrated the grounds in August 1848, just days after Esther Ennis became the first burial on July 31.¹³ The cemetery’s statistics tell the story of immigration and urban epidemics. By 1852, Calvary received fifty burials daily—half of them poor children under age seven. From August 1848 to January 1898, the cemetery recorded 644,761 interments. Adult burials cost seven dollars; children under seven cost three dollars. During influenza and tuberculosis epidemics in the early twentieth century, gravedigger shortages forced mourners to dig graves for their own loved ones.¹⁴

Calvary expanded to 365 acres divided into four major sections, formally named the Divisions of St. Calixtus, St. Agnes, St. Sebastian, and St. Domitilla after ancient Roman catacombs.¹⁵ The St. Calixtus Chapel, rebuilt in limestone in 1908, features bas-relief carvings and a granite statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus crowning its roof. The cemetery remains active today, with offices at 49-02 Laurel Hill Boulevard coordinating burials across seventy-one numbered sections.

My Slovak great-grandparents Vasil Marcisak (1876-1954) and Anna Hurkala Marcisak (1888-1975) joined this diverse immigrant community at Calvary. Vasil’s brothers established themselves nearby: Nicolas Marcisak (1881-1958) married Anna’s sister Katherina Hurkala (1890-1977), and the couples rest together in Section 71, Plot 127, Grave 13. Brother Joannes (John) Marcisak (1890-1948) and his wife Anna Pacanovsky (1893-1973) raised a large family, with five of their seven children eventually buried at Calvary: Mary (1912-1927), George (1914-1996), William (1920-2004), Edward (1925-1973), and Irene (1926-1932).

The Marcisak family faced their own tragedies. Another brother Michael Marcisak (1878-c.1954) and his wife Tatiana Janoscik (1883-1962) lost their daughter Mary Marcisak Pascarella in 1951 and Helen Marcisak in 1960, both resting at Calvary. Vasil and Anna’s children scattered more widely than their Plunkett and Dowling cousins: two rest at Saint Charles Cemetery in East Farmingdale (Anna Marcisak, 1905-1964, and Michael Marcisak, 1909-1991), while my grandmother Eva Marcisak Dubinsky (1911-1995) chose Forest Green Park Cemetery, where she rests beside her husband George Dubinsky (1910-1987), a World War II veteran. Two of Vasil’s sons, Stephen (1913-1961) and Paul (1922-1959), returned to Calvary, maintaining the family’s connection to Queens.

Marcisak Family Burials at Calvary Cemetery

Name	Relationship	Dates	Location	Find a Grave Memorial ID
Vasil Marcisak	Great-grandfather	1876-1954	Calvary Cemetery	199286042
Anna Hurkala Marcisak	Great-grandmother	1888-1975	Calvary Cemetery	199286043
Stephen Marcisak	Granduncle	1913-1961	Calvary Cemetery	199285679
Paul Marcisak	Granduncle	1922-1959	Calvary Cemetery	199285678
Nicolas Marcisak	Great-granduncle	1881-1958	Section 71, Plot 127, Grave 13	272610473
Katherina Hurkula Marcisak	Great-grandaunt	1890-1977	Section 71, Plot 127, Grave 13	272610499
Joannes (John) Marcisak	Great-granduncle	1890-1948	Calvary Cemetery	273521282
Anna Pacanovsky Marcisak	Great-grandaunt	1893-1973	Calvary Cemetery	273521311
Mary Marcisak	1st cousin 2x removed	1912-1927	Calvary Cemetery	273519914
George Marcisak	1st cousin 2x removed	1914-1996	Calvary Cemetery	273521416
William Marcisak	1st cousin 2x removed	1920-2004	Calvary Cemetery	273521139
Edward Marcisak	1st cousin 2x removed	1925-1973	Calvary Cemetery	273521343
Irene Marcisak	1st cousin 2x removed	1926-1932	Calvary Cemetery	273519943
Michael Marcisak	Great-granduncle	1878-c.1954	Calvary Cemetery	—
Tatiana Janoscik Marcisak	Great-grandaunt	1883-1962	Calvary Cemetery	199236727
Mary Marcisak Pascarella	1st cousin 2x removed	1914-1951	Calvary Cemetery	199236727
Helen Marcisak	1st cousin 2x removed	1920-1960	Calvary Cemetery	199236729

Find a Grave® memorial IDs provided for research reference.

The Dubinskys: Byzantine Catholics in Johnstown

While the Marcisaks settled in New York, my other Eastern European ancestors established themselves in Pennsylvania’s industrial heartland. George Dubinsky (1910-1987) married my grandmother Eva Marcisak (1911-1995), but his family’s story unfolded far from New York’s Catholic cemeteries. George rests beside Eva at Forest Green Park Cemetery in New Jersey, where both received burial in the military section honoring George’s World War II service.

George’s roots reached back to Johnstown, Pennsylvania’s Carpatho-Rusyn community. His parents Paul Dubinsky (d. 1912) and Julianna Dubinsky (d. 1920), along with his brother Vasil Dubinsky (d. 1909), were all buried in what death certificates simply called the “Greek Cemetery.”

This designation almost certainly refers to St. Mary’s Byzantine Catholic Cemetery in Lower Yoder Township, just west of Johnstown. St. Mary’s Greek Catholic Church, founded in 1895 and dedicated to Our Lady of Perpetual Help, served the Carpatho-Rusyn and other Eastern Rite Catholic immigrants who settled in Johnstown’s Cambria City neighborhood.¹⁷ The parish cemetery became the final resting place for this tight-knit Byzantine Catholic community, distinguishing these immigrants from their Latin Rite Catholic neighbors through both liturgical tradition and burial customs.

Dubinsky Family Burials

Name	Relationship	Dates	Location	Find a Grave Memorial ID
Vasil Dubinsky	Great-granduncle	d. 1909	St. Mary’s Byzantine Catholic Cemetery, PA	—
Paul Dubinsky	2x great-grandfather	d. 1912	St. Mary’s Byzantine Catholic Cemetery, PA	—
Julianna Dubinsky	2x great-grandmother	d. 1920	St. Mary’s Byzantine Catholic Cemetery, PA	236292144

Burial information documented through death certificates and cemetery records held privately by author.

Bringing Families Together Through Virtual Cemeteries

Find a Grave’s virtual cemetery feature allows researchers to gather scattered relatives into curated collections, making patterns of burial and family relationships immediately visible. By creating virtual cemeteries for the Plunkett, Dowling, Marcisak, and Dubinsky families, I can unite relatives buried across multiple physical locations—from Holy Cross to Calvary to Johnstown’s Byzantine Catholic cemeteries and New Jersey’s military sections—into single, searchable collections. These virtual gatherings reveal migration patterns as twentieth-century descendants moved from Brooklyn to the suburbs and across state lines, highlight family burial traditions like the Dowlings clustering in Olive Square Plot 32, and identify gaps where relatives remain undocumented. Virtual cemeteries transform individual memorial pages into cohesive family narratives, allowing researchers to spot naming patterns (like multiple Peter Plunketts across generations), track which siblings stayed near parents versus those who established new family plots, compare burial customs between Latin Rite and Byzantine Rite Catholics, and share their research with distant cousins discovering the same ancestors.

These cemeteries—from Brooklyn’s Holy Cross to Queens’ Calvary to Johnstown’s St. Mary’s Byzantine Catholic Cemetery—transformed from historical abstractions into deeply personal landscapes when I discovered how many generations of my family rest within their gates. Every visit connects me to the Irish famine refugees who built Brooklyn’s Catholic community, the Slovak immigrants who followed decades later, and the Carpatho-Rusyn families who found new lives in Pennsylvania’s industrial cities, all seeking better lives in America.

Your Turn: Discover Your Ancestral Burial Grounds

Have you traced your family through cemetery records? Standing at an ancestor’s gravestone creates an emotional connection that transcends dates and documents—you’re literally standing where your family mourned, remembered, and honored their dead.

Whether your ancestors rest in grand metropolitan cemeteries like Holy Cross and Calvary or in small rural churchyards, each burial ground holds stories waiting to be discovered. Use Find a Grave® and BillionGraves® to locate your family’s graves, request photos from local volunteers if you can’t visit in person, and consider creating virtual cemeteries to document your family’s burial patterns across generations and geography.

I’d love to hear about your cemetery discoveries! Share your stories in the comments below—which cemeteries hold your family history? Have you found unexpected relatives buried together, or traced migration patterns through changing burial locations? Your experiences might inspire other researchers to explore the sacred ground where their own ancestors rest.

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2. “Why EVERY grave has a GPS location on BillionGraves,” BillionGraves Blog (https://blog.billiongraves.com/why-every-grave-has-a-gps-location-on-billiongraves/ : accessed 12 October 2025); “BillionGraves,” FamilySearch Wiki (https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/BillionGraves : accessed 12 October 2025). ↩︎
3. Joseph Silinonte, “Brooklyn’s Cemetery of the Holy Cross,” New York Irish History 6 (1991-92): 31-34; digital edition, New York Irish History Roundtable (https://nyirishhistory.us/article/brooklyns-cemetery-of-the-holy-cross/ : accessed 12 October 2025). ↩︎
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8. Family burial information compiled from Find a Grave® memorials, cemetery records, death certificates, and family research. Memorial identification numbers provided in tables for research reference purposes. ↩︎
9. NYC Cemetery Project, “Holy Cross Cemetery.” ↩︎
10. New York City Department of Health, Certificate of Death no. 9365 (1871), Kings County (Brooklyn), Mary Dowling, died 31 October 1871; digital image, “New York City Municipal Deaths,” NYC Department of Records & Information Services (https://a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov/view/2984571 : accessed 19 October 2025). ↩︎
11. New York City Department of Health, Certificate of Death no. 2709 (1876), Kings County (Brooklyn), Timothy S Dowling, died 18 March 1876; digital image, “New York City Municipal Deaths,” NYC Department of Records & Information Services (https://a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov/view/2982882 : accessed 19 October 2025).
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14. Wikipedia, “Calvary Cemetery (Queens)”; Calvary & Allied Cemeteries, “Calvary Cemetery”; Rhona Amon, “The Cemetery Belt,” Newsday, 23 October 2007; digital edition, Juniper Park Civic Association (https://junipercivic.com/history/the-cemetery-belt : accessed 12 October 2025); The Journal of the American Irish Historical Society 7 (1907). ↩︎
15. Calvary & Allied Cemeteries, “Calvary Cemetery.” ↩︎
16. Pennsylvania, Department of Health, Certificate of Death no. 62434 (1912), file no. 62434, Cambria County, Paul Dubiosky, died 30 July 1912; issued 10 September 2024 to Kirsten M. Max-Douglas, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE], Cincinnati, Ohio.; Pennsylvania, Department of Health, Certificate of Death no. 104201-108000 (1909), file no. 392626, Cambria County, Vasil Dubnanski, died 19 September 1909; database with images, “Pennsylvania, U.S., Death Certificates, 1906-1972,” Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/5164/images/41381_2321306652_0584-02813 : accessed 19 October 2025), image 2813 of collection 5164; citing Pennsylvania State Archives, Harrisburg.; Pennsylvania, Department of Health, Certificate of Death no. 11507317 (1920), file no. 62434, Cambria County, July Cifra, died 31 May 1920; issued 10 September 2024 to Kirsten M. Max-Douglas, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE], Cincinnati, Ohio. ↩︎
17. “St. Mary Byzantine Catholic Church,” Historic Pittsburgh (https://archpitt.org/place/johnstownpa-2/#:~:text=Dedicated%20to%20Our%20Lady%20of,was%20blessed%20on%20October%2013 : accessed 19 October 2025). ↩︎