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Miscouche Graveyard |
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| Location | People | Environment | Resources | Recreation | Changing Communities | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Our Grade 7 class explored the history of our community, starting with the cemetery next door to our school. For some of our students, this was a first trip to a graveyard. We stressed respect for the dead and graveyard property. We divided the graveyard into six sections. We examined each area in terms of surnames on the stones, as well as types of headstones. For our assignment, we each selected ten surnames found in that section of the graveyard. We determined the ethnic background for the majority of people for that section. We concluded that in the oldest section of the graveyard, there were mostly Acadian families, while the next oldest section had a large number of Irish/scottish people, mixed in with a few Acadians. In sections 3, 4 and 5, we found largely Acadian ancestry. In the final section, the newest section, we found a mixture of all different cultures, Acadian, Scottish, Irish and other European names, possibly due to the changes in local population due to the local air base. Next we found the average life span in each section and as predicted, moving from older to newer, life spans got longer, except for the periods of the two World Wars. When we looked at the headstones themselves, it was a geology lesson. The variances in colours of stones allowed us to speculate on the materials used, such as sandstone, granite, etc.. Then we looked at some of the unique stones - with their slogans and symbolic pictures, which we thought might be indicating the profession or interests of the deceased. Some examples found were harness race horse, tractors for farmers, musical instrument (violin), fishing boat. Some stones had extended family names on one stone, while others were just for one person. Generally older stones had multiple names, as several generations lived in the same area. This is something that has changed, possibly because people move around more. Finally,each student took one stone and did a rubbing as an art component to the project. Sayings and names were interesting sources of many of the rubbings. Here's some photos of our field trip:
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