Introduction

My name is Brian Yerka and I am a descendant of Jacob Yerka and Jadiviga (Hedwig) Konszewska Yerka of Poland. They immigrated in the 1880s and settled in the Dickson City area of Lackawanna county, Pennsylvania.

In addition to the Yerkas, I am also descended from the Steven and Ruth Pingree family of Massachusetts and Oxford County, Maine, the William Morgan Smith family from Fayette County, Georgia, the Edmund Allums family of North Carolina and Georgia and the Peter Knudson family of Denmark.

My wife is descended from the Johanasson/Lundgren family of Sweden and is also descended from the Carl Olofson family of Sweden. She is also descended from the Benjamin Bartlett family of Plymouth, Mass.

My wife and I are parents of five children and grandparents of 18.

FAG history

I am now retired and we purchased a home in Blackfoot, ID to be near most of our children and grandchildren.

We used to live in the Twin cities area of Minnesota. I have done some work in Hillside and Lakewood cemeteries and chose to concentrate on them while we were there. We also have ties to Meeker and Kandiyohi counties through my wife's family. If anyone needs help researching families in this area we will be glad to help. I still have a copy of the Litchfield Cemetery records and add new memorials occasionally.

I will continue to maintain all the memorials I have created thus far. I may still contribute to memorials in Minnesota as we will be back around from time to time. I am still maintaining my receiving e-mails from the Johnson-Hagglund Funeral Home, Litchfield, MN and posting new memorials for those interred in a given cemetery.

New change for 2020:

Previously , I have not been creating memorials for cremations without a designated burial. As more and more people are choosing cremation without a place of internment, I have decided to change that policy. Beginning in 2020, I will now begin creating memorials for cremations without a burial location listed. Unless noted in the obituary, all will be generically designated as Cremated; ashes in possession of the family.

I am now posting from the Blackfoot/Pocatello, Idaho and surrounds as appropriate. I have also signed up for e-mail updates from the local funeral homes and (in a friendly way) spar with another local FAG contributor who seems to get to most of them before me.

In retirement my wife and I plan to travel the nation, visit family and friends who have scattered, and continue with our journey into our family history. I will post memorials in FAG as we perform this labor of love.

Veterans

I am a US Navy veteran and I am now a member of the Pocatello Veterans Honor Guard. If there is a veteran not properly honored with a memorial in Find a Grave, I am more than willing to help find and document our servicemen and women of all conflicts. E-mail me with the information you have and I will endeavor to see to it that the veteran is properly honored.

Babies

Being a father and grandfather, I have a special place in my heart for babies and children. To that end, I am concentrating on documenting babylands in the cemeteries I am working in. (For some reason, the babylands in many of the cemeteries I document have been bypassed by those who came before me). Babies and children are precious to God our Father and deserve recognition that they lived on this earth even so briefly.

Note:

Because FAG doesn't have designated prefix for a baby, I use Baby as a prefix in the first name for any child under 2 years of age. If the initial search for a baby comes up empty, add Baby to the first name and try again.

FAG recently changed their prefix options to allow me to type the word "baby" into the prefix so now I will "fix" any suggestions for those memorials that I previously used "baby" in the first name. Because I created so many, it may take a while before all of them are changed over.

Some premies or stillborns are simply listed as "Infant" on their gravestone or in the cemetery records. I have kept that as a first name if no other information is available after an online search or cemetery office search. If I am able to determine gender, then I will list them as an Infant boy or infant girl in the first name.

I search online records for each baby and young child to locate and document their parents and post that information on their memorials and link them to their parents if they have also passed away. I welcome all family information to help document these precious spirits with their families.

FAG Philosophy

I registered at Find a Grave because this site has become my new best friend when doing family history research and I want to try to advance the opportunities to others.

To that end, I will never be a top contributor at Find a Grave. I endeavor to do more than simply post photos of gravestones and markers. I do some basic online research into each internment so that I can link the deceased to their parents, spouses, children, and siblings as much as possible.

I will sometimes do additional research as the Spirit of the Lord directs by searching County birth and death records to complete the documentation for an internment. This is sometimes the only way to source the parents of an infant as they were not often given an obituary or grave marker. Premature or Stillborns are often not given official birth or death records making their identification more difficult.

In keeping with my philosophy of providing as much information as possible with each memorial, I welcome such additions to any of my memorials. Please use the edit button for basic information, and submit more detailed biographical information through the additional information selection, or e-mail me directly. Please be sensitive to the events of their lives when detailing personal information.

Obituaries:

In decades past, obituaries were posted only in the local newspaper. Obituaries today come from many sources:

Newspapers
Historical records
Published genealogies
Funeral Homes

The Minnesota Historical Society has county newspapers going back to the late 1800s. Many county historical societies also carry their respective newspapers. Some Newspapers and funeral homes have been publishing obituaries online since 2001. Most have been publishing online since 2008. Funeral homes today will also let you get an e-mail when they have a new internment in their care, accompanied by the official obituary. I utilize this service specifically with one local funeral home in Litchfield, MN, and others now here in Idaho.

It must be noted that some funeral homes write well detailed obituaries detailing the parents, spouse, children, and other relatives along with the life history of the deceased, others, a bare bones sketch of the deceased with little or no family information.

This is my policy about obituaries.

It may be different than Find a Grave. I know others feel differently.

1. I will post obituaries provided that they are sourced to their publisher with publication (newspaper, funeral home, public historical record, etc.) and date of original publication.

2. All obituaries I post are referenced to the issuer, with the date of publication.

3. A published obituary, whether in print or online, is now a public document. Privacy no longer applies. I know that some are concerned about privacy or possible identity theft by publishing the names of living relatives, but with either a newspaper (they are now published online as well as print) or online publication of an obituary from a funeral home, this information is no more distant than a simple Google search or a search of the newspaper or funeral home website.

4.. Because a published obituary is a public document, I will post the names of living relatives in the deceased memorial as they are listed. I do not include any other information about living relatives.

5. I will remove any information from an obituary if requested by a direct family member.

If you use one of my photos, please keep my name with it.

Other thoughts and policies

My full cemetery posts still include the Rosendale Immanuel Lutheran Cemetery in Rosendale, (Danielson Township) Meeker County, The Bethania Christian Church Cemetery and the Swedish Baptist Cemetery in Greenleaf township, Meeker County, and the Good Shepherd Free Lutheran cemetery in Cokato, MN

Lake Ripley Cemetery, Litchfield, MN

Through a friend in Litchfield, I now have a copy of the cemetery books for (Lake Ripley) Litchfield cemetery. The city has also given me everything they have and I have volunteered to assist the city in verifying the graves and documenting the entire cemetery.

Thanks to a couple of fellow gravers who early on transferred a large number of memorials to me, I now manage a fair number of memorials in the Litchfield cemetery. If there are any that other gravers would like to send any my way, I will gladly accept them.

I especially want to send a public thank you for FAG contributor CAW (Contributor 47885308) for his continuing updates to the internments in Litchfield.

Even though I have moved to Idaho, I still post new internments in that cemetery. I do wish to thank a couple of other FAG contributors who have been sending me family updates to a number of memorials that I manage. I appreciate their efforts to expand on the family information there.

Since moving to Blackfoot, I am starting to post memorials in the local cemeteries. I am still working with the Mountain View and Restlawn cemeteries in Pocatello, the Inkom cemetery in Inkom, and the Norton Cemetery in McCammon. I also check the local cemeteries as my wife and I have traveled in Idaho to historic towns. As these cemeteries are largely documented in FAG by other contributors, I consider it my task to locate the parents, spouses, and children of these internments if the previous contributor didn't.

If anyone needs some assistance for someone either known to be buried in a particular cemetery or wants to know if someone is buried in a particular cemetery within 25 miles of Blackfoot or Pocatello, e-mail me and I will do what I can to help.

I will transfer ownership of non family memorials to you if you are related. Please include your relationship to those you request.

Please use the edit button for updates and e-mail me for any other correspondence.

Native American Cemeteries

The Fort Hall Indian Reservation has several cemeteries for the burial of their residents. Occasionally, I get a photo request for someone interred in one of these cemeteries.

I recently learned however, that the Shoshone-Bannock tribe does not want people visiting their cemeteries without a "Trespass Permit" and are uncomfortable about their graves being photographed. I have notified FAG about this and they have placed a notice at the cemetery website, but I know that few view such notices.

While this requirement covers only this reservation, there is a strong likelihood that other tribal nations may have similar requirements. If you get a photo request for a Native American internment on their reservation, check with the tribal government before you encroach on tribal land.

Thank you.

Introduction

My name is Brian Yerka and I am a descendant of Jacob Yerka and Jadiviga (Hedwig) Konszewska Yerka of Poland. They immigrated in the 1880s and settled in the Dickson City area of Lackawanna county, Pennsylvania.

In addition to the Yerkas, I am also descended from the Steven and Ruth Pingree family of Massachusetts and Oxford County, Maine, the William Morgan Smith family from Fayette County, Georgia, the Edmund Allums family of North Carolina and Georgia and the Peter Knudson family of Denmark.

My wife is descended from the Johanasson/Lundgren family of Sweden and is also descended from the Carl Olofson family of Sweden. She is also descended from the Benjamin Bartlett family of Plymouth, Mass.

My wife and I are parents of five children and grandparents of 18.

FAG history

I am now retired and we purchased a home in Blackfoot, ID to be near most of our children and grandchildren.

We used to live in the Twin cities area of Minnesota. I have done some work in Hillside and Lakewood cemeteries and chose to concentrate on them while we were there. We also have ties to Meeker and Kandiyohi counties through my wife's family. If anyone needs help researching families in this area we will be glad to help. I still have a copy of the Litchfield Cemetery records and add new memorials occasionally.

I will continue to maintain all the memorials I have created thus far. I may still contribute to memorials in Minnesota as we will be back around from time to time. I am still maintaining my receiving e-mails from the Johnson-Hagglund Funeral Home, Litchfield, MN and posting new memorials for those interred in a given cemetery.

New change for 2020:

Previously , I have not been creating memorials for cremations without a designated burial. As more and more people are choosing cremation without a place of internment, I have decided to change that policy. Beginning in 2020, I will now begin creating memorials for cremations without a burial location listed. Unless noted in the obituary, all will be generically designated as Cremated; ashes in possession of the family.

I am now posting from the Blackfoot/Pocatello, Idaho and surrounds as appropriate. I have also signed up for e-mail updates from the local funeral homes and (in a friendly way) spar with another local FAG contributor who seems to get to most of them before me.

In retirement my wife and I plan to travel the nation, visit family and friends who have scattered, and continue with our journey into our family history. I will post memorials in FAG as we perform this labor of love.

Veterans

I am a US Navy veteran and I am now a member of the Pocatello Veterans Honor Guard. If there is a veteran not properly honored with a memorial in Find a Grave, I am more than willing to help find and document our servicemen and women of all conflicts. E-mail me with the information you have and I will endeavor to see to it that the veteran is properly honored.

Babies

Being a father and grandfather, I have a special place in my heart for babies and children. To that end, I am concentrating on documenting babylands in the cemeteries I am working in. (For some reason, the babylands in many of the cemeteries I document have been bypassed by those who came before me). Babies and children are precious to God our Father and deserve recognition that they lived on this earth even so briefly.

Note:

Because FAG doesn't have designated prefix for a baby, I use Baby as a prefix in the first name for any child under 2 years of age. If the initial search for a baby comes up empty, add Baby to the first name and try again.

FAG recently changed their prefix options to allow me to type the word "baby" into the prefix so now I will "fix" any suggestions for those memorials that I previously used "baby" in the first name. Because I created so many, it may take a while before all of them are changed over.

Some premies or stillborns are simply listed as "Infant" on their gravestone or in the cemetery records. I have kept that as a first name if no other information is available after an online search or cemetery office search. If I am able to determine gender, then I will list them as an Infant boy or infant girl in the first name.

I search online records for each baby and young child to locate and document their parents and post that information on their memorials and link them to their parents if they have also passed away. I welcome all family information to help document these precious spirits with their families.

FAG Philosophy

I registered at Find a Grave because this site has become my new best friend when doing family history research and I want to try to advance the opportunities to others.

To that end, I will never be a top contributor at Find a Grave. I endeavor to do more than simply post photos of gravestones and markers. I do some basic online research into each internment so that I can link the deceased to their parents, spouses, children, and siblings as much as possible.

I will sometimes do additional research as the Spirit of the Lord directs by searching County birth and death records to complete the documentation for an internment. This is sometimes the only way to source the parents of an infant as they were not often given an obituary or grave marker. Premature or Stillborns are often not given official birth or death records making their identification more difficult.

In keeping with my philosophy of providing as much information as possible with each memorial, I welcome such additions to any of my memorials. Please use the edit button for basic information, and submit more detailed biographical information through the additional information selection, or e-mail me directly. Please be sensitive to the events of their lives when detailing personal information.

Obituaries:

In decades past, obituaries were posted only in the local newspaper. Obituaries today come from many sources:

Newspapers
Historical records
Published genealogies
Funeral Homes

The Minnesota Historical Society has county newspapers going back to the late 1800s. Many county historical societies also carry their respective newspapers. Some Newspapers and funeral homes have been publishing obituaries online since 2001. Most have been publishing online since 2008. Funeral homes today will also let you get an e-mail when they have a new internment in their care, accompanied by the official obituary. I utilize this service specifically with one local funeral home in Litchfield, MN, and others now here in Idaho.

It must be noted that some funeral homes write well detailed obituaries detailing the parents, spouse, children, and other relatives along with the life history of the deceased, others, a bare bones sketch of the deceased with little or no family information.

This is my policy about obituaries.

It may be different than Find a Grave. I know others feel differently.

1. I will post obituaries provided that they are sourced to their publisher with publication (newspaper, funeral home, public historical record, etc.) and date of original publication.

2. All obituaries I post are referenced to the issuer, with the date of publication.

3. A published obituary, whether in print or online, is now a public document. Privacy no longer applies. I know that some are concerned about privacy or possible identity theft by publishing the names of living relatives, but with either a newspaper (they are now published online as well as print) or online publication of an obituary from a funeral home, this information is no more distant than a simple Google search or a search of the newspaper or funeral home website.

4.. Because a published obituary is a public document, I will post the names of living relatives in the deceased memorial as they are listed. I do not include any other information about living relatives.

5. I will remove any information from an obituary if requested by a direct family member.

If you use one of my photos, please keep my name with it.

Other thoughts and policies

My full cemetery posts still include the Rosendale Immanuel Lutheran Cemetery in Rosendale, (Danielson Township) Meeker County, The Bethania Christian Church Cemetery and the Swedish Baptist Cemetery in Greenleaf township, Meeker County, and the Good Shepherd Free Lutheran cemetery in Cokato, MN

Lake Ripley Cemetery, Litchfield, MN

Through a friend in Litchfield, I now have a copy of the cemetery books for (Lake Ripley) Litchfield cemetery. The city has also given me everything they have and I have volunteered to assist the city in verifying the graves and documenting the entire cemetery.

Thanks to a couple of fellow gravers who early on transferred a large number of memorials to me, I now manage a fair number of memorials in the Litchfield cemetery. If there are any that other gravers would like to send any my way, I will gladly accept them.

I especially want to send a public thank you for FAG contributor CAW (Contributor 47885308) for his continuing updates to the internments in Litchfield.

Even though I have moved to Idaho, I still post new internments in that cemetery. I do wish to thank a couple of other FAG contributors who have been sending me family updates to a number of memorials that I manage. I appreciate their efforts to expand on the family information there.

Since moving to Blackfoot, I am starting to post memorials in the local cemeteries. I am still working with the Mountain View and Restlawn cemeteries in Pocatello, the Inkom cemetery in Inkom, and the Norton Cemetery in McCammon. I also check the local cemeteries as my wife and I have traveled in Idaho to historic towns. As these cemeteries are largely documented in FAG by other contributors, I consider it my task to locate the parents, spouses, and children of these internments if the previous contributor didn't.

If anyone needs some assistance for someone either known to be buried in a particular cemetery or wants to know if someone is buried in a particular cemetery within 25 miles of Blackfoot or Pocatello, e-mail me and I will do what I can to help.

I will transfer ownership of non family memorials to you if you are related. Please include your relationship to those you request.

Please use the edit button for updates and e-mail me for any other correspondence.

Native American Cemeteries

The Fort Hall Indian Reservation has several cemeteries for the burial of their residents. Occasionally, I get a photo request for someone interred in one of these cemeteries.

I recently learned however, that the Shoshone-Bannock tribe does not want people visiting their cemeteries without a "Trespass Permit" and are uncomfortable about their graves being photographed. I have notified FAG about this and they have placed a notice at the cemetery website, but I know that few view such notices.

While this requirement covers only this reservation, there is a strong likelihood that other tribal nations may have similar requirements. If you get a photo request for a Native American internment on their reservation, check with the tribal government before you encroach on tribal land.

Thank you.