Genealogy & records
Finding a grave
Three public databases cover most of the stones. The lodge holds the plat, the deed book, and the interment record for everything else.
Start here
The lodge's burial index
Every recorded interment, with section and plot, from the lodge's own record. Search by name or maiden name; filter veterans by war, Masons, Past Masters. Read plot numbers against the plats.
Photographs of stones
Find a Grave
Nearly 1,500 memorials, almost all with a photograph of the stone and about a fifth with GPS coordinates. Search by name, or browse the cemetery. Volunteers maintain it; corrections can be suggested on each memorial.
Section and lot numbers
TXGenWeb transcription
Stones read on the ground through 1994 by the Blanco County Historical Commission, listed with section and lot (for example “D-12”) — the same references the lodge uses on the plat. The best source for locating an older grave.
Mobile
BillionGraves
GPS-tagged headstone photographs, useful on a phone while walking the rows.
The designation
Texas Historical Commission atlas
The state's record of the cemetery (Atlas no. 7031000105) and of Historic Texas Cemetery marker 12868, placed in 2002. The marker text is transcribed on HMDB.
What the lodge holds
Plat, deeds, and interment record
Johnson City Lodge No. 561 keeps the recorded plats (the 1894 Koeniger plat and the 2008 Casparis Sections A–C), the book of lot deeds, and the record of interments. The lodge secretary, through the Cemetery Committee, can usually answer:
- where on the plat a named person is buried, and how to walk to it;
- who holds the deed to a family lot, and whether unused spaces remain in it;
- whether an unmarked grave is recorded in a given lot;
- dates of interment where the stone is illegible or missing.
Records before the 1950s are incomplete, and the survey notes on the 2008 plats warn that mapped lot lines “do not reflect actual burials.” We will tell you what the record shows and what it does not.
There is no charge for a records inquiry. Please allow a week or two; the committee are volunteers.
Other places to look
- Blanco County Clerk — deed records from 1876; the 1892 cemetery deed is Vol. 15, p. 77 and the 1894 plat Vol. 15, p. 80.
- Blanco County Historical Commission, 101 Pitchfork, Johnson City — cemetery transcriptions and family files.
- Johnson City Library — local newspapers on microfilm, including the Record Courier obituaries.
- “Blanco County Families for One Hundred Years” by John Stribling Moursund — the standard county family reference.
- James Polk Johnson Cemetery, 7th St. & Ave. L — the town founder's family plot. J. P. Johnson himself is buried there, not here.
- Johnson Family Cemetery, LBJ Ranch, Stonewall — President Johnson's parents and grandparents.