Genealogists joke that genealogy is so interesting because everyone has a family -- even if they don't want to admit it -- and North Hills Genealogists are making it easier to find links to the past.

The North Hills Genealogists club has announced the publication of "Pioneer Cemeteries of Franklin Park Borough and Marshall Township," the third book in their pioneer cemeteries series. Previous editions covered Pine, Richland and Hampton townships.

The 368-page book has more than 6,000 names from six cemeteries in Franklin Park Borough and Marshall Township.

"It's been a lot of effort and time, and we should be very proud of our product," says Amy Arner, vice president of North Hills Genealogists. "I don't think people who are not in genealogy realize the time and effort and dedication genealogy requires."

It took club members five years to gather all of the information, including historic photos, church records, other cemetery gravestone readings, family histories, the 1935 Veterans Survey and municipal histories. The index alone is 60 pages.

Irene Dinning, who has been in the club for 10 years and inputted much of the data for the book, says that although it took several years to collect all of the information, it was worth it.

Dinning and other club members uncovered little pieces of history in each cemetery.

"You discover these things as you're reading these stones, and it's just like, 'wow,'" Dinning says, almost speechless thinking about the buried history.

In the Trinity German Evangelical Lutheran Church cemetery, Philip Brandt's grave is marked with a tall obelisk with his likeness, or death mask, carved on it. Brandt lived from 1817 to 1907 and his name lives on in Brandt School Road.

In Fairmount Presbyterian Church cemetery, a Revolutionary War soldier is buried among the gravestones.

The biggest challenge for the cemetery teams was making sure every gravestone was accounted for. Some cemeteries, especially older ones, such as Fairmount cemetery, do not have gravestones in easy-to-read rows.

Many stones also are hidden after years of neglect. There are stones leaning on trees, covered by grass or lying face down in the dirt, and Dinning adds: "There's always something under the peony bush."

In addition to the club members who spent hours going through the cemeteries, many community members lent a hand along the way. Dinning says at one cemetery, a gravedigger came forward and offered the group the plot plan. Others offered their own family history to be added to the book.

"It was really a community effort with people coming forward with information," Dinning says.

Elissa S. Powell, a certified genealogist and a club member, explains it is so important to preserve the information in cemeteries because each year another letter or number fades away.

"Because of acid rain, because of vandalism, because of development and expansion, we need to preserve these stones," Powell says. "These could be the only record of a person's life."

Dinning agrees, saying from the first time she went into a cemetery to two to three years later when she went back, as much as 20 percent of the gravestone information was lost.

The club meets at 7 p.m. on the third Tuesday of every month, except Dec-ember, at Northland Public Library. The library provides a well-stocked home base for the club with its collection of more than 250 genealogical books.

The library also subscribes to two genealogy databases for the public -- Ancestry Library Edition and Heritage-Quest.

Late last month, the North Hills Genealogists presented adult services librarian Amy Steele with 14 books covering various genealogical subjects, including the new "Pioneer Cemeter-ies" edition. The books will be added to Northland's growing collection.

"A lot of the books they gave me, I can't get through our wholesaler," Steele says. "So, for me, it's a great way to round out our collection.

"It's like Christmas for me."