Brian Seltzer, a Producer for KYW Newsradio podcasts, reached out to the African American Genealogy Group (AAGG) about a story he was planning to produced about Negro league baseball players interred at Historic Eden Cemetery in Darby, Pennsylvania. He had already arranged an interview at Eden, to discuss the gravesite of Dan McClellan, whose gravesite had gone unmarked for decades. This is amazing, considering the fact that McClellan is known to have pitched the first no-hitter in black baseball, back in 1903. Brian planned tie his story about Eden and unmarked negro leagues baseball player graves to the challenges of African American genealogy, and lost "roots". As a member of the AAGG Executive Committee, I volunteered to be interviewed. This story had several touch points for me. My 2nd great grandparents had a still-born child that was interred at a cemetery, which later closed and those gravesites were re-iterred at Eden. Also, my uncle, Alfred Henry, played for two negro leagues teams, although he is not interred at Eden.
I was surprised that Brian was unaware that AAGG volunteers have been digitizing Eden records since about 2015. He only identified AAGG because its name popped up to the top of his internet search for "African American genealogy". However, contacting AAGG was perfect, because its efforts help family researchers locate ancestors gravesites through its postings on Find-A-Grave.
Brian's podcast's accompanying article is entitled "Unmarkeded graves make genealogy a difficult, painful process for Black Americans"
