09/07/2025
Program: Grave Dowsing .. plus, The Oklahoma Cemetery Directory.
The September 15, 2025, program, presented by our very own EGS president, Jan Beattie, will cover Grave Dowsing and The Oklahoma Cemetery Directory. Grave Dowsing, is the ability to identify unmarked graves and whether the interred are male or female and infant, child or adult, and how to make dowsing rods. We’ll also see a demonstration video of the different techniques used in grave dowsing.
The Oklahoma Cemetery Directory, a publication with photos, driving directions, GPS coordinates and cemetery histories of almost 5,000 cemeteries across the state will help you locate the cemetery where your Oklahoma ancestors and family are buried.
Jan will explain that family researchers who want to trace their family trees and find where their Oklahoma family is buried now have the benefit of tracking down even the most obscure cemetery, thanks to the endeavors of Oklahoma Home and Community Education (OHCE) Genealogy Group in Oklahoma City (of which she is President). Per Jan “Many may know the name of the cemetery where their ancestor is interred but have no idea where it is located; much less how to find it. We also realized that we were losing a lot of Oklahoma’s history because there was simply no record of many of the small cemeteries where our ancestors are buried. We endeavored to locate all known cemeteries and single burial locations from all 77 counties across Oklahoma. There are almost 5,000 of them! We published this tool to help people locate the cemetery their Oklahoma ancestor or family member is buried. It provides cemetery entrance or overview photos, driving directions from a fixed point, legal descriptions and cemetery histories of the cemeteries if they are known as well as any famous burials the cemetery may contain or other interesting information. It is a great research tool for anyone with Oklahoma ancestors.”
Jan Beattie is a native of California, but came to Oklahoma more than 45 years ago to attend college and never left. Now she is married with two children and two granddaughters and retired from the medical field. She now has time for her genealogy hobby.
She is involved in several genealogy and lineage-based societies and loves to share her knowledge with others. She is President of the OHCE (Oklahoma Home and Community Education) Genealogy Group in Oklahoma City and President of the Edmond Genealogical Society. She is Registrar for Cordelia Steen DAR Chapter in Edmond and a member of OK DAR State Speakers Staff and OSDAR State Application Team (SAT). She is State/Department Registrar for DUV (Daughters of Union Veterans) and State/Division Chaplain for UDC (United Daughters of the Confederacy). She holds memberships in Oklahoma Genealogical Society, First Families of the Twin Territories, Colonial Dames 17th Century and several other genealogical organizations and lineage societies and holds chapter and state offices in most of them. She is also involved in "Cemetery Hopping" to help others locate the final resting places of their Oklahoma ancestors. She has been researching her family for almost fifty years and is passionate about genealogy.
Edmond Genealogical Society meetings are free and open to the public. Programs start at 6:30 p.m. Meetings are held the third Monday of the month at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints located at 15700 N. Penn, Oklahoma City. Enter through the doors on the south side of the building. The church offers plenty of parking and is fully handicap accessible. For more information on EGS, go to our website edmondgensoc.org, send an email to info@edmondgensoc.org, or visit us on Facebook at Edmond Genealogical Society. If any changes are made to this event, we will post the information on our page and website.
