Tales tombstones tell

Mike Fichtel's fascination with genealogy began when he was 13 and rummaging in his family's attic looking for something to do.

Little did he know the notebook he found would lead to a lifelong, consuming passion.

It came from a time when his mother served as secretary of her family reunions in Naperville and Aurora and contained a crude listing of her Zentmyer relatives dating to the 1830s.

"That's a long way back," Fichtel said. "It just sparked my interest."

Intrigued, the Aurora resident went on to trace one branch of his mother's family to the 1580s in Germany and his father's ancestors to the late 1700s in Luxembourg.

But the charter member of the Fox Valley Genealogical Society didn't stop there. He since has led society efforts to read the tombstones and publish the inscriptions for thousands of gravesites in area cemeteries; edited the society's publication, "Fox Tales," for 24 years; and compiled an index containing an astonishing 34,500 items of genealogical interest.

The index of genealogical journals and newsletters the society has received over 20 years recently became available on its Web site, www.rootsweb.com/~ilfvgs.

Fox Valley Genealogical Society members Jim Weichel and Harold Workman will make a presentation on "Mike's Index & Other Internet Genealogy Sources" at the society's next meeting at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the Naperville Municipal Center, 400 S. Eagle St., Naperville.

Weichel, the society's former president, developed the searching software for the index that Fichtel had compiled on 3-by-5 cards. The index includes references to surnames, obituaries, Bible records, biographies, cemeteries, wills, pension records and other items of genealogical interest.

"We named it Mike's Index because people familiar with what he's done are so awed about it, we thought it ought to have his name on it," Weichel said. "It took us a year with 12 volunteers to enter them in the database."

Fellow genealogical society members say Fichtel also has no equal when it comes to reading old gravestones.

"He's an expert person in being able to decipher the markings on a tombstone," Workman said. "He's always been very meticulous in getting the information correct."

Fichtel said he cut his teeth reading tombstones while researching his father's relatives in Pennsylvania. Many of the inscriptions on the older stones were in German, and Fichtel learned what he calls "tombstone German."

"Certain words and phrases are common, so I got to learn the meaning of them," he said. "You do it so much, you become familiar with the different characteristics."

Fichtel's ability to read tombstone German has come in handy in writing down inscriptions in cemeteries in Naperville and Aurora, where many of the early settlers were of German and Luxembourger heritage.

A few years ago, he led the efforts to read all the stones in Calvary Cemetery in Aurora, the oldest Catholic burial ground in the Fox Valley. The book the society published two years ago on Calvary also contains obituaries Fichtel had found for many of those buried there.

The society now is putting the finishing touches on a book that will contain tombstone inscriptions and photos of the Naperville Cemetery. Fichtel said he hasn't counted the tombstones, but they number in the thousands, with some stones marking the graves of entire families.

Society members had to dig up some of the stones to read the history they contained. One stone Fichtel spotted poking up from the ground turned out to be the marker for the mother of Naperville founder Joseph Naper.

"We pieced some of these (tombstones) together like a jigsaw puzzle," he said.

One of Fichtel's favorite gravestones in the Naperville Cemetery is that of a Civil War surgeon that contains the artillery shell that killed him with an appropriate inscription.

"I love cemeteries. They're not just a place where somebody is buried," he said. "They are places to remember people."

Older tombstones often contain more information than modern gravestones, Fichtel said. They may state whose child the person was, the exact date of birth and death, and the person's county or country of origin.

A lamb signifies a child who died young; clasping hands a husband and wife.

Many older tombstones also contain symbols signifying the person's religious, fraternal or occupational interests. The style of a cross could tell the person's religious denomination.

The Masons, which had an active lodge in Naperville, had dozens of symbols. The gravestone of a blacksmith might have an anvil carved on it.

"It's a fascinating subject unto itself, to learn what in past years people considered important," Fichtel said.

He also is proud of the society's newsletter, "Fox Tales," which recently has been revamped into a research-orientated quarterly.

"I'll be able to publish longer articles," he said.

With a full-time job as a merchandise supervisor in a Wal-Mart store and an elderly mother to look after, Fichtel doesn't have as much time for research as he would like.

Still, he finds time for personal projects such as an Illinois biographical index he's compiling and an index he is doing of a local newspaper's obituaries and vital records from the 1970s to the present.

"He doesn't necessarily say a lot, but he does a lot," Weichel said.

If you go

What:Fox Valley Genealogical Society's presentation on "Mike's Index & Other Internet Genealogy Sources"

When:7 p.m. Thursday

Where:Naperville Municipal Center, 400 S. Eagle St., Naperville

Cost: $1 donation

Info:www.rootsweb.com/~ilfvgs