Family Cemetery

This is a story about an old family cemetery and new construction -- with a happy ending.There are no angry descendants, no backhoes digging up bones. Just a 75-year-old man in a wheelchair who can still travel along a path lined with forsythia and white pine to spend time with his ancestors in western Howard County.His name is William B. Welling Jr. and his family has lived in Howard County since at least the late 1700s. A cemetery containing his great-great-great-grandfather and as many as 18 other family members sits off Trotter Road near Clarksville.

Descendants of Christian and Barbara Geiman have succeeded in saving a family cemetery threatened by development.With help from the county, the genealogical society and the property owner, the family has preserved a small plot at Bachmans Valley and Hoover Mill roads.The plot, north of Westminster, is less than a tenth of an acre and was to be part of a six-lot subdivision called Danlyn Section 3 owned by Carol Bare of Westminster, said Franklin G. Schaeffer, chief of the Bureau of Development Review.