Around 1990 Ardmoreite Mr. Bill Hamm installed a database program called FirstChoice on his home computer and started entering the burial information of individuals interred in cemeteries all across Carter county. With over 70 cemeteries in Carter county to gather info from, we will never know the hours and miles Mr. Hamm spent recording the data, one record at a time, until at his death the database consisted of almost 66,500 individuals. As time went by Mr. Hamm would also gather burial records from Love, Marshall and Johnston counties. Mr. Hamm continued entering info into his database up until January 2004.
Following Mr. Hamm's death, his son Steve Hamm, brought me his dad's data complied into 4 database formats. Steve used his dad's plain text files from the FirstChoice program and output the data into: Microsoft Access 97, Access 2003, dbf (dbase 4), and csf (comma as the separator) formats. These files are VERY large, with "dbase 4" file being the largest at nearly 11 megs. If you are on a slow dial-up internet connection, it will take several minutes to download. Just right-click on the links and 'Save Target As' to a Folder on your computer, for example, the MyDocuments Folder.
June 2, 2004 - Because of an oversight, Ardmore's Rosehill Cemetery records were not included in earlier downloadable files. So if you downloaded any of these files before 6/02/04, you need to download the files again so your database includes Rosehill records.
Right Click Here ----> Download Access 97 File (5.8mb) and 'Save Target As'
Right Click Here ----> Download Access 2003 File (10.6mb) and 'Save Target As'
Right Click Here ----> Download dbase 4 File (10.9mb) and 'Save Target As'
Right Click here ----> Download Text File (3.7mb) and 'Save Target As'
If you have trouble downloading such large files, or just prefer to have them on CD, snailmail me a couple of bucks and I'll mail you a CD with all 4 files on it.
Butch Bridges - PO Box 11 - Ardmore, OK 73402
When Mr. Hamm was living he made his work accessible to the public on Genweb. Here is a link to Mr. Hamm's original work on the Oklahoma Genweb website.
Click here ----> Genweb DatabaseObituary for Mr. William B. "Bill" Hamm from The Daily Ardmoreite on May 14, 2004
If you have any burial info for Carter, Love, Marshall or Jefferson counties from your personal research, family records, obits, etc., and would like it added to the databases here, just send me an email, and we will do our best to include it.
The direct phone line to Rosehill Cemetery office on "C" SE in Ardmore - 580-220-2838
"What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us;
what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal."
Email Butch Bridges Email Me