German Immigrant Ancestors
in Syracuse and Onondaga County, New York
Cemeteries
This page is under construction and growing (thanks to contributions from
generous researchers).
We welcome your help, additions, and corrections! Please
email me.
This page features only cemeteries with connections to the German population of Onondaga
County. For a much more comprehensive list of Onondaga County cemeteries, visit Rootsweb's
Onondaga County GenWeb site at
http://www.rootsweb.com/~nyononda/INDEX.HTM.
And don't forget Findagrave.com
|
ROMAN CATHOLIC CEMETERIES - The main office for the Roman Catholic cemeteries in Syracuse is located at St. Agnes Cemetery at 2315 South Avenue in Syracuse, NY (13207; Telephone (315) 472-6802). They provide burial locations and maps at no charge, and provide
more information (dates of death/burial, names in adjacent graves, etc.) for a research fee. Check for current services and policies. Another source for Roman Catholic burial records is the Diocesan Archives, 240 East Onondaga Street,
Syracuse, NY 13202 (Telephone (315) 422-7203 for an appointment with the Archivist.)
|
ASSUMPTION CEMETERY
Status: Active (c. ? to present)
Address: 2401 Court St.,
Syracuse, NY 13208
Telephone: (315) 454-3841; Fax: (315) 454-4931
Affiliated with the Catholic Assumption Church.
Assumption Cemetery is one of the largest in Syracuse and has been called a vast
"city of the silent." As Assumption Church was once the major German Catholic church
on the North Side of Syracuse in the heart of the German community, many Germans were
buried here. Facilities include a chapel and mausoleum.
Office hours are during the week, but the cemetery is open for visitation
at other times (check with the cemetery). It is helpful to
visit during office hours so that you may pick up a map from the office.
The records situation can be tricky and seem arbitrary from case to case.
My personal experience from years ago was that I wrote ahead
two months in advance of my visit (1994), sending a check and a self-addressed, stamped
envelope, and received
no response. When I visited the cemetery office, my uncashed check was returned to me (I was told they
hadn't had the time to respond) and the office
personnel were very helpful in looking up my ancestors' burial sites on their office
computers on the spot. But when I returned to the office an hour later for more
lookups of the same surnames, I was told I must submit requests in writing as they did not have time to do
more than a few lookups per person at the counter.
Assumption Cemetery records are also available on 3" x 5" cards at the
Onondaga Historical Association in Syracuse, perhaps your best bet for extensive
research.
Photos by M. Stone, June 1994 show just a portion
of the vast Assumption Cemetery and its chapel
|
St. Joseph Cemetery Memorial
Photo by Norman C. Staub, Sr., 2001
See MORE and MORE
ST. JOSEPH'S (GERMAN) CEMETERY
Status: Catholic. Extinct.
Former Address: 801 Pond Street and 700 First North, Syracuse, NY
Burials c. 1852-1953, managed by the Conventual Franciscan friars.
Remains from some 4,000 to 6,000 graves were disinterred and
transferred to Assumption Cemetery 1965-1966, in order to make way
for a shopping center.
Formerly overseen by the
Catholic church, St. Joseph's Cemetery was the final resting place for many
Germans and Irish. Evidently what burial records are still available (if any) is
difficult to determine. Some records concerning St. Joseph's Cemetery might be held by the Diocese Archives,
240 E. Onondaga
St., Syracuse, NY 13201-0511; Website:
The Catholic Diocese of Syracuse,
NY. St. Joseph's Cemetery records are also supposedly held by the
Franciscan friary in Rensselaer, NY (see email from Norman C. Staub,
Sr. below). St. Joseph's Cemetery burial information is also available on
3" x 5" index cards at the
Onondaga Historical Association on Montgomery Street in Syracuse and
at the Onondaga
County Public Library on South Salina Street in Syracuse.
See also "Old St. Joseph's Cemetery: A Dahlin/Spaeth Family Perspective."
|
Sender: Kelly Michaels Schaff
Email: kschaff@twcny.rr.com
Date: 28 October 2003
Re: St. Joseph's Cemetery and Assumption Cemetery
Some of the records from St. Joseph's German Cemetery are located at the
Syracuse [Onondaga County] Public Library on Salina St., Galleries Mall, Syracuse.
They have records that were written down by the 'person' who dug up the
graves. They also have another set of records.
My great Aunt, Florence Griffin, 1912-2002, stated that all of my 'Griffin'
ancestors were buried there. She said that people were given the 'choice'
to either have everyone buried in the common grave; or to purchase plots in
Assumption. My great grandfather did not want to do that, since he had
already paid for the plots on St Joseph's; and did not 'trust' them to put
'his' people in the right graves. My great aunt watched the excavation and
her sisters headstone, as well as everyone's, was just thrown in a pile. So
I guess you were given a choice.
Kelly Michaels Schaff
Liverpool, NY
Sender: Norman C. Staub, Sr.
Email: normanssr@att.net
Date: 16 & 27 November 2002
Re: St. Joseph's Cemetery and Assumption Cemetery
The OHA [Onondaga Historical Association in Syracuse] has copies of the records
from St Joseph's cemetery and the
Assumption Cemetery. I had been looking for these for at least four or five
years without much luck. Assumption Cemetery told me that they are in the
process of computerizing their records, but they haven't finished yet and don't
know when they will be available. I was also told that the records of St.
Joseph's are at the Franciscan friary in Rensselaer, NY, but when I called
there I was put off with the claim that the Archives were being moved and were
not available. Thus, finding the cemetery records at the OHA was a welcome
surprise. My wife and I copied much new information about members of my family
in both cemeteries. The records are on 3 x 5 cards individually written out.
I don't know when it was done; apparently a number of years ago.
St Joseph Cemetery.... It was opened about 1852.
According to the description of German churches on your website, St. Joseph's
church was established in 1882; some 30 years later. According to the
information I obtained at the Syracuse Roman Catholic Diocesan Archives in
1998, the cemetery was used predominantly by Germans and Irish.
St. Joseph's cemetery, run by the Conventual Franciscan friars, was closed
after World War 2, I think. It was never very large, and the Franciscans
stopped selling plots in the early 20th-century. People who owned grave sites
continued to be buried there, so by WW2, the cemetery was more or less full.
It was closed and abandoned by the Franciscans, who obviously felt they no
longer had any responsibility to care for it. Over the years, it was overgrown
by bushes, vines and trees and seriously vandalized.
Assumption Cemetery, which is much larger, took St. Joseph's place early in
the 20th century. About 1962, St Joseph's Cemetery was sold for a shopping
center development. All of the graves, I think there were about 6,000, were
opened and any remains found were moved by local undertakers to a mass grave in
the Assumption Cemetery. I have seen the mass grave site and the monument
marking it. Of all the known burials fewer than 500 were ever identified.
The abandonment of St. Joseph's has been a real blow to my family because so many of my
forebears (Staub, Geiger, Saile) were buried there. As far as I know, their
remains were never identified; they must be in the mass grave.
|
Copyright 2003, 2004, 2005, 2012, 2021 Michelle Stone.
All rights reserved. This information may be
used for personal and/or scholarly research
only. Commercial use or reproduction of any information contained on this website
is strictly prohibited. Information contained on this site is not to appear on
any web site on the Internet
or in any printed format without written permission.
Please link to my
site and give appropriate copyright credit.
Thanks!
|