Ann Josberger McFadden, who labored in the Florida Room at the downtown Miami Library for over 30 years compiling genealogical information in Dade County has very generously transferred the copyright to the Palms-Woodlawn Cemetery index to the Historic Homestead Town Hall Museum. This wonderful act ensures that a much larger group of people can access a document which may supply the location of the final resting place of one of their ancestors who lived in the Homestead area.

I have uploaded two versions of this index to this website: a scanned version of McFadden’s book and a new and revised version in Excel spreadsheet format. The conversion of the original document into an Excel spreadsheet took a lot of time because of the errors introduced by the optical character recognition software used during the scan. I spent thousands of hours correcting as many errors as I could find but there are no doubt some that I missed. For this reason, I advise you to download both versions of the index so that you can check the Excel spreadsheet against the original scanned document for differences.

Please note that McFadden’s index is not without errors. I corrected spelling errors and removed duplicate entries while doing the data entry. I’ve also added names (and will continue to do so) that are not in McFadden’s document. I’ve discovered these names while perusing the Homestead and Miami newspapers. You will find differences between the spreadsheet and McFadden’s index so be careful not to accept either version without other evidence.

If you find an error in the spreadsheet and you have documentation to support the change, please send me an e-mail at [email protected] so that I can correct the spreadsheet. I would imagine that McFadden consulted the original records at the cemetery office but those records may have had errors in them and she may also have made transcription errors. Whatever the reason for the discrepancy, please let me know so that future researchers don’t stumble over the same error.

I have created plot maps for Sections A,B,C and D. Those plot maps do not seem to have all of the plots that are shown in the cemetery index. I’m not sure why this is so but at least by using these maps, you will be able to get a better idea of where your relative is buried if you visit the cemetery. I’ve also uploaded a map of the entire cemetery. You can access these resources by clicking on this link.

The Excel workbook has 6 pages: Palms Memorial Cemetery, Section A, Section B, Section C, Section D and Palms Memorial Mausoleum. I did not make any corrections to the Mausoleum records as I found the entries in the columns very confusing. I did, however, go over Sections A, B, C, and D with the proverbial fine-toothed comb. The first sheet is the entire Palms Memorial Cemetery and the section pages are extracted entries from what is in the first sheet. I created separate sheets for those four sections because they are the oldest sections in the cemetery and I hope to make those records as complete as possible. Note also that what are now identified as Sections A, B, C, and D do not conform exactly with the original boundaries for these sections. Section A is only a fraction of what it once was – parts of sections M and N were originally part of Section A.

The Excel spreadsheet is sorted, by default, alphabetically by surname. You may sort it any way you please. Note that column A is an index column so that by sorting that column A to Z you can return the spreadsheet to its original configuration. By sorting the data in different ways, you may find, for example, some interesting demographic trends that are otherwise not apparent. If you make an interesting discovery, please share it with me.

Download a scanned copy of McFadden’s Naranja Cemtery index by clicking on this link:

McFadden’s Palms Memorial Index

Download the Excel spreadsheet of the Naranja Cemetery Index by clicking on this link:

Excel version of the Palms Memorial Index.

Please note that this spreadsheet is a work in progress – be sure that you have the latest version!