By Beth David, Editor
In addition to the statewide databases and the databases that the Millicent Library subscribes to, the library has its own cache of information in four databases of its own. Archivist Debbie Charpentier has been working on them for years.
The Fairhaven Cemetery database includes the records of everyone buried in the three cemeteries: Naskatucket, Riverside, and Woodside. It also includes three private cemeteries, which will allow people to research their ancestors without trespassing on private property
It is a work in progress, said Ms. Charpentier, but she finally reached critical mass and put it online. In the end the database will include more than 25,000 burials.
The second database is Fairhaven Vital Records from 1844–1899. It includes birth, death, and marriage records from the town and can be used by genealogists and historians.
The third is the Fairhaven Star newspaper. All the papers from 1879 to 1967 have been digitized and are now available in a searchable database. That project required special equipment and was funded with Community Preservation Act money authorized by Town Meeting.
Millicent Library Archivist Debbie Charpentier shows some of the details available on the cemetery database available through the library’s website during the library’s open house event sponsored by the Friends of the Millicent Library on Saturday, 9/22/18. Ms. Charpentier has catalogued the names of nearly every person buried in Fairhaven cemeteries, including dates of birth and death, and inscriptions on gravestones. Photo by Beth David.
The fourth is the Lost Fisherman Database, dedicated to those local fisherman lost at seat. This “ongoing labor of love,” as the website states, is also, sadly, being added to as necessary.
The cemetery databases will eventually have photos of all the stones. As of now, Nasketucket and Woodside have photos already uploaded. The records for Sacred Heart Community Cemetery, which is a private cemetery of the Catholic Church, includes the obituaries of the priests buried there.
The project started in 2004, when Ms. Charpentier’s mother and father said they wanted to be buried at Naskatucket in East Fairhaven. She discovered that it had been neglected, all the trustees had died. There were no records to be found anywhere.
She just felt, she said, that those people should not be forgotten.
She started going to the cemetery every chance she got, taking pictures and writing down information on the stones. She made a map.
Then she cross-referenced the information with death records.
“That’s why it took 12 years,” she said, then remembeed, it actually took 14 years.
When she started hanging around the cemetery, she said “people took notice.”
“So, all of a sudden, Riverside Cemetery decided to be responsible for the upkeep of Naskatucket,” she said, and started mowing the grass.
Then the police started patrolling more, to keep an eye on her as she walked around at all hours, sometimes with flashlight in hand.
“And now, people are being buried there again,” she said, because Riverside is operating it.
The project is not quite done. There are 20,000 buried at Riverside and she has uploaded about 6,000 names so far.
“There has to be a certain amount of patience involved,” said Ms. Charpentier, in what could be the understatement of the year.
To find the databases, visit http://millicentlibrary.org
Ms. Charpentier is also looking for volunteers to help by taking pictures of headstones. Call 508-992-5342 for more information.
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