Genealogist Kelly Champion Bacon will lead the tour
By Barb Pert Templeton
Finding out you’re related to someone famous can be fun but when Kelly Champion Bacon traced her roots back to victims of the Salem Witch Trials in 1692 it was a shock but also sad.
Bacon discovered a line leading back to Gils Corey, an infamous Englishman accused of witchcraft who was killed during the Salem Witch Trials. Bacon said Corey was her 10th great-grandfather.
Sharing stories, perhaps not as harrowing at that one, will be part of Bacon’s presentation when she hosts a walk at Woodlawn Cemetery at 10 a.m. on Monday, Oct. 28. The event asks for a $20 donation for the Washington Life Center in Marine City, and will include a one-to-two-hour tour of the cemetery. Participants simply need to call the Life Center at (586) 765-3523 to register for their spot.
Genealogist Kelly Champion Bacon, of East China Township, will lead a tour of the Woodlawn Cemetery in Marine City on Oct. 28.
An East China Township resident and Marine City native, Bacon, sometimes referred to as “Girl Who Wanders Cemeteries” will lead the guided tour. She will share a brief history of the Woodlawn Cemetery along with various stories and anecdotes about the tombstones there.
A lifelong fan of visiting cemeteries, often just to clean-up the tombstones or to pay her respects, Bacon said this will be her first official presentation as a tour guide.
“It’s exciting because I like sharing the history of our town and genealogy is my stitch,” she said. “And this is just a really huge passion for me.”
Along those lines Bacon enjoys helping other people trace their family roots and said she could probably do a family tree for someone in about an hour because she’s very experienced in it now.
In fact, she’s traced her own family roots back to some very interesting characters. In addition to the Englishman Giles Corey she discovered that she’s also has ties to Rebecca Addington Chamberlain, a woman who was hung after being recognized as a witch in Salem during the same time period.
Local genealogist Kelly Champion Bacon found out she’s related to late country music star Kitty Wells who married Bacon’s cousin, Johnny Ray Wright. Both of the late music starts are pictured here on a publicity photo from an album they did in 1968.
On a more upbeat note, Bacon was also able to trace her family tree to country music star Kitty Wells, who was married to Johnnie Ray Wright, another country singer, who it turns out was Bacon’s cousin.
“Kitty was like a country music queen and she’s related by marriage because she married my cousin,” Bacon said. “I’ve found many distant cousins too and I contacted them and I’m in touch with them now, we talk about once a month, so that’s fun.”
As for the Woodlawn Cemetery, Bacon said it dates to the 1800’s and in fact her great uncles’ grandparents owned Thatcher Granite Works, the company that actually made tombstones for the Woodlawn Cemetery.
Bacon said there are many graves at Woodlawn that note the person lost their life on the St. Clair River and other sites serve as the last resting places for area veterans.
“People used to drown on that river a lot more than people realize,” Bacon said.
Utilizing old newspapers and ancestory.com to dig deep into her own family tree, Bacon said it’s not that difficult to go back generations if you know how to do it. Census records are also a great help.
As the date for her first genealogy tour closes in Bacon is pleased to have the opportunity to share her knowledge and looks forward to hosting similar events in the community in the future.
To register for the Washington Life Center Woodlawn Cemetery Walk, call the center at (810)765-3523.
