Rhode Island Historical Cemeteries Transcription Project

The Rhode Island Historical Cemeteries Transcription Project is a volunteer effort of the RI USGenWeb Project to record for posterity the inscriptions from nearly half a million gravestones. Begun in 1990, the project was nearly three-quarters completed as of 2007. See the project's history for more information.

The project has been a great resource for my Carr surname research. The Carr family line that Edson and Arthur Carr focused on in their books (Edson's Carr Family Records and Arthur's The Carr Book are available by subscription at Ancestry) traces back to the mid-17th century, when Robert and his younger brother Caleb left the Massachusetts Bay Colony and settled in Newport. Caleb lived a long life in Rhode Island, owned land, operated a ferry service, and served twice as General Treasurer of Rhode Island and even briefly as Colonial Governor. In a freak mishap, Caleb fell from one of his ferries and drowned.

You'll find Caleb's grave record within the project here. It appears as seen below.

CARR CALEB 1623c - 17 DEC 1695 JM001

The project offers a key to cemetery codes, which explains that JM001 is a special lot where the Colonial Governor is buried in Jamestown. The code description includes the name of the cemetery and its precise location.

JM001 GOV CARR LOT JAMESTOWN EAST SOUTH ROAD ->50 ft. W

Some of the Carrs from this particular line remained in the area, but many moved westward, which in the late 18th and early 19th century meant they moved west to New York, Pennsylvania or maybe Ohio. Some Carrs were in the initial Quaker settlements on the new frontier. Many Carrs prospered as farmers. Some were captured or met their death in Indian attacks.

In what seems today like a misplaced touch of the Wild West, there was a Wyoming Valley in 18th-century eastern Pennsylvania being settled by a Connecticut company. According to a Wilkes-Barre history, "The name Wyoming was derived from a corruption of Maugh-way-wame, a Delaware Indian name for The Large Plains." The State of Wyoming may have gained its name in 1865 from this Pennsylvania region, according to Wikipedia, which adds its own explanation of the derivation of the state's name. "The name Wyoming derives from the Munsee name xwé:wamənk, meaning "at the big river flat," originally applied to the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania, made famous by the 1809 poem Gertrude of Wyoming by Thomas Campbell.^[8][9]"

There was always some movement of Carrs between Rhode Island and nearby Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. A marked shift of population into Rhode Island's cities in the late 19th century involved people leaving the region's less and less productive farms to accept new factory jobs. Immigrant Carrs came to Rhode Island from Europe to operate the state's many mills and factories. I've noted that many Irish Catholics came to Providence County during this period.

Those who dwelt and died in Rhode Island -- Carrs and others -- can be found in this wonderful database. I encourage you to bookmark the site and use it often.