St. Joseph's Cemetery (Polish Roman Catholic Church - Camden, NJ) - Chews, Camden Co, NJ

Saint Joseph's Cemetery

240 Lower Landing Road, Chews, NJ 08012

Website Link - Click Here

Find a Grave Link - Click Here

Billion Graves Link - Click Here

Visit Date: 3-22-2020

Today was our visit to St. Joe's cemetery in Chew's Landing.  I wasn't expecting it to be super productive since I couldn't find any cemetery maps online, and each ancestor I knew was buried there I had no additional information for the section, plot or grave site.  Amazingly, I was able to find not only each relative I sought out to find the grave for, but also other last names which were on my "research list" that I have not yet been able to link to my family tree.  Overall, it was a very productive day, and a great day outside which provided a much needed break from the coronavirus (COVID-19) lock-down that we are all experiencing.

Great-Grandmom & Great-Grandfather

First and foremost, I wanted to find my great-grandmother "Gee-Goms", Elizabeth (Palenski) Guzik.  She ended up being the last one that I found, and I found her on my walk out after having resigned to the idea that I was not going to find her location today.  

The location was somewhere around the place where all of the sisters of St. Joseph's church are buried and on a sloping hill.  A weird coincidence I noticed is that great-grandmom died on the same day as her husband, but 40 years later, both on October 9th.  I was 17 when great-grandmom died and I remember going to her funeral with my misbehaving family.  

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Great-Great Grandfather John Guzik

This one I spotted right away, and was pretty close to where we came in.  It was in a section with a lot of other people I am related to, so it had me thinking that the plots may or could have been bought together.

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Other Guzik's

I was also able to locate other family tree members.  Michael & Blanche Guzik.  Michael was John Guzik Jr.'s brother which would make him my second great-uncle.

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Other Branches of Family Tree

I also found my Mom's Aunt & Uncle.  I did meet Aunt Anna at least once, I remember we spent easter together one year when I was in high school. 

Thoughts

A notable quality of this cemetery is that most if not all of the gravestones are modern / laser cut.  Elijah had the theory that maybe the graves were relocated from the area of the church, and new ones were created in the place of transporting over the old.  I am not sure why this is, especially with some of the death dates, but I will look into this further, or ask next time I go to a St. Joseph's event.

Because of the "readability" of the text on the graves it was super easy to just show up without a plan!