I began to reread the Efird book from cover to cover. Judge Efird states the location was one-quarter mile east of St. Martin Church. This land was purchased by Worth Almond and his wife Nora Burleson Almond approximately 50 years ago and has been passed down to their daughters, Katherine Almond Talbert and Nancy Almond Burleson. Katherine and Nancy and myself are first cousins and share the same line of Efird decent.

Finding the lost cemetery was becoming a possibility after talking to Katherine and obtaining her permission to conduct a search. A lot of detective work would have to be done. The next couple of weeks were spent taking notes and studying all the information from the Efird book, which was very vague. Some of the clues are:

By studying the contour line on a geodetic map, I plotted where I thought the “Old Oakboro Road” would have been, I then looked for a hillside that had the right contour to allow a two story log house to be set into the hill (the floor of the first level extended into the hill with the second level being ground level on the back of the house only). I plotted this possible location on the map. The next step was to find a suitable hill for the cemetery “past the springs”. I plotted this location on my map. I checked and rechecked all my information, clues and my contour map. By using my 22 years of military experience of using and teaching the use of a contour map, I was confident I had plotted the most likely spot. But how could I prove it? All markings and tombstones had disappeared over 100 years before. I needed help. It was time to call for the “Ghost Busters”! At the next Genealogical Society meeting I gave Pam and Priscilla a copy of my information from the book along with a copy of my map. They were ready to give it a try but they would have to use their special weapon that earned them the name “Ghost Busters”, the dowsing rods. I’m sure many of you do not believe that dowsing works, I didn’t either, but I have witnessed Pam and Priscilla using them and it works every time. I saw them locate the slave graves that were known to be buried outside the Motley Cemetery, but not marked. By dowsing unmarked spaces in a cemetery they can determine if it is vacant. They have determined the boundaries of many cemeteries. I am now a believer!

With another call to Katherine, Saturday, November 11, 2005 was selected to go exploring. At 10::00 AM Saturday morning my wife Nancy and I met Pam and Priscilla and went to Katherine’s house to pick her up. The search area is now in a cow pasture of about 40 acres. At the pasture gate our host Katherine Talbert opened the gate and all five of us loaded into my pick-up truck and we drove through the pasture. At the spring there are two tremendous oak trees the size and age surely makes them “Witness Trees” as they were standing during Jacob’s life time. We parked near the first oak in what is clearly the original roadbed of the Old Oakboro Road. This was one of the clues and my plotting was accurate. I got out of the truck and looked up the hill where I thought the dugout of the house would be, but I didn’t see it. Could I have been right about the road and wrong about the house? Too late for second-guessing, now the search team was on the grounds with loads of tools in hand asking me, “Where do we start?” We walked past the huge water oak, past the spring and set down the buckets that contained the shaving cream, squeegee, talc powder, and magnifying glasses; materials that are used to highlight and bring out lettering on tombstones.