Rootseekers press release
For those of you who are doing research on your family tree, check out the Findagrave.com web site. Jim Gamblin spoke to the Rootseekers about the Findagrave web site and it is an amazing web site to help in your research. Jim explained to us how to use the search to find the graves of many of our families who have died. There are thousands of volunteers who take the time to enumerate cemeteries and even add pictures of the tombstone. You can search by surname, cemetery, state, county and even by date of birth or date of death. There are 104 million grave records and more coming every day. You can search for famous people from all around the world. Jim has add hundreds of graves himself a lot of his own family.
Jim was born and raised about 30 miles east of Kansas City at Odessa, Mo. He was the fifth of seven children. As a child of 11, he helped his father mow cemeteries and dig graves. He says he retired from that ASAP. After high school he went to work for the telephone company that later became Sprint. He started as a ground man and worked his way up to a lineman, installer/repairman. After 10 years of that he became an instructor in Sprints training center, then 1st line supervisor and finished his 39 1/2 years as a forecaster of long range growth.
He has been married to his wife Delores for 50 years and they have three sons, 12 grandchildren and one great-granddaughter. Ten of his 12 grandchildren are girls. He retired in 2000 and began his genealogy research. He is researching the name of Gamblin, Rigdon and Barker. Sidney Rigdon who helped start the Mormon Church is his 1st cousin 5 times removed.