Wake Wednesday - Norwood Cemetery - Wake Cemetery Collection Use Case Tutorial (Update July 30, 2025)

Update - see new detail on the Norwood Cemetery at the end of the post.


An effort to get out and enjoy a mild December day before the cold set in resulted in a hike in northern Wake county that led to an encounter with this small graveyard sitting just off a trail head at the Shinleaf Campground area of Falls Lake. Surrounded by it's dilapidated fence, the tiny graveyard contains three graves naming a Norwood family.

I was curious to know if they were logged in the Wake County Cemetery Image Collection. I snapped a few photos so I could compare when I got home and made a mental note of the location for my search.

The cemetery dates to the late 1890s - 1920s. The stones and fence around them look newer than that, but they are very disheveled. There are two very large trees growing within the fence, one having taken on the role of sentry post disallowing any entry. The condition of the fence tells the story of a great storm passing through. The panels are mangled and bent. I wonder if it was Hurricane Fran that did this or some other storm passing through. 

Despite all the damage to the fence, the stones are still very readable as these photos show. (Click images for readability.)

John Norwood 7/3/1822 - 8/16/1898
Ann Mangum Norwood 7/3/1834 - 6/4/1920
They had the same birthday.

Valera Hunter Norwood
Dates are unreadable currently in real life.

View on Google

Once back at my computer, I wanted to compare what I saw in real life against what might be recorded in the Wake County Cemetery Image Collection. I had no idea if I would find it or not. I am sharing the steps of my search to help others explore the collection when they are hunting a family cemetery. 

I knew I was looking for a Norwood Cemetery and it would be in the northern part of Wake County. To speed things along, the first place I looked was the Surname Finder file. This file catalogs surnames from small family cemeteries. It is quite a help when looking in rural areas. 

Note that larger community cemeteries were not included in the Surname Finder. For the most part, the burial lists for those were typed and can be searched with in the file as any other OCR document would be.

I see the Norwood surname in four townships. I could rule out Neuse and Little River since they were not in the right part of Wake County. I needed to check New Light and Bartons Creek. I started with New Light since the park entrance was off  New Light Road. 

When I browse through a list I like to be sure I am seeing all the included cemeteries so I increase the listings per page to the maximum number of 250. With most townships, you will see everything at this setting. There are a couple of exceptions. (Wake Forest twp. being one.)  Set New Light to max 250 listings per page. 

I did not find this cemetery in the New Light list. I checked the list for Barton's Creek (again setting the listings per page to 250) and success!  I found a listing for a Augustine Norwood that references a John Henry Norwood. 

The Augustine Norwood file is a delightfully nonstandard submission. Instead of the usual form, this file contains a three page letter describing two related Norwood families in different parts of Wake county. Best of all are the hand drawn maps included. This is just one example of the treasures with in the collection. The good news for us is that the map confirms this is the right cemetery in the right location and the dates match the stones. Here is the map from the letter and you can view the file for yourself here. 

Next, I opened the Bartons Creek New Index spreadsheet to see what notes were recorded there. You can view the snippet below on the spreadsheet and see that we did find the cemetery listed on Find A Grave and that the link is attached. I clicked the F/G link and from there I was able to add the dates for daughter, Valera. She was born 8/2/1853 and died 11/11/1920. 

view on Bartons Creek spreadsheet

I was also able to determine from looking at the Find a Grave entry for this Norwood cemetery that the GPS location recorded at F/G is incorrect. The cemetery is not located next to the public restrooms, but at the opposite end of the parking lot. It is directly across the parking lot from the "Mountain to Sea" trail as shown in the Google map satellite image above. Should you go looking you will see a trail marker for a path going down to the lake. The Norwood cemetery is just a short walk down that trail.

In addition to finding links to other cemetery sites, the New Index spreadsheet for each township houses newer information about cemeteries as it becomes known such as updated addresses as Wake County grows, street names are added to the State Road numbers (something we could not accommodate in the images) making them so much easier to follow, and GPS coordinates are included in most cases. Some are to the last verifiable point, but that is at least a starting place and the site can usually be found by following the given directions from that point. This is very valuable information that will speed up your discovery process so, ALWAYS check the township spreadsheet! They are linked several places on the township page so you can find them quicker. You will find a link right under the township name on the township page and you will find another in the 02 section of each township listing.

This was a fun exercise with a totally serendipitous discovery. It really helps illustrate all the features we put into the Wake Cemetery Survey Image Project to help you in your search and discovery of  family resting places. If you have any questions or tips of your own that help with finding, please reach out to me.   newsletter@wakecogen.org

Don't hesitate to jump in and start searching the Wake County Cemetery Survey image files!

Update: Earlier this year, a very nice sign was erected beside the Norwood Cemetery with background information on the family members and their place in the local community. The sign was a project by Oliver Durham and BSA Troop 28. The photo is posted here with permission of Greg Orcutt.

Click image to view larger. Photo by Greg Orcutt

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