"This work is intended to serve several purposes. First, it provides a genealogy as complete as it has been possible to compile with the material the author] has been able to uncover. It also attempts to gather together such documents as are available concerning the life of the early generations of the McElwain family in this country, and to link these together with a narrative. Finally, it endeavors to set forth how some genealogical and historical conclusions were reached and to suggest to future family historians research which might prove fruitful and problems which might arise." This...

In the years 1901 through 1909, Jeremiah Zeamer of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, recorded cemetery inscriptions throughout Cumberland County. These records found their way to the state library in Harrisburg, and in 1960 they were transcribed from "brittle, crumbling pages" by Helen I. Harmon. The five copies of that transcript are now in libraries in Pennsylvania. This reworking of the compilation contains 8,987 inscriptions, mostly from the nineteenth century. Inscriptions have been collected from seventy-three cemeteries, located in twelve townships and two boroughs. Every name mentioned in the...