I pull weeds at grave sites. Especially my Dad’s. He was a weed freak — not a weed in sight on his small farm. The only reason he’d ever come back to haunt his family would be if weeds were growing on his grave. So the weeds are intently and intentionally eliminated.

I’ve visited more than the average share of cemeteries. You can’t be a genealogy enthusiast and not visit cemeteries. It may seem a little macabre, but when the records run out and you don’t know where else to turn, you start walking through cemeteries.

My roots are deep in England. Ancestors joined the Mormon sect and, persecuted, escaped to America and eventually to Utah. This left a trail of potential cemetery sites stretching from the eastern side of England all the way across the plains to Utah. I’ve visited cemeteries all along the way on both sides of the Atlantic. My maternal side also sent me scuttling northwards in the British Isles to peer around in Scottish cemeteries.

Actually, the most memorable cemetery ever visited was in the wilds of Scotland. A series of clues led me to believe ancient relatives lay somewhere along an abandoned trail in the backlands of Scotland. An aerial map guided me there. My husband and I hiked the obscure pathway, peering about for signs of a cemetery. I was looking for a quiet, level, grassy site. The reality was a distant pile of brush and a nearly indiscernible stone wall in its midst. We found it.

Walking was suddenly too slow. My husband gamely said, “Go ahead. I’ll catch up.” I started hiking faster, than broke into a run as I scrambled through the brush to it. I remember saying, “I’m coming! I’m coming!” to no one. But the need to say it was deep.

The wall’s only entrance was an arch with “1652” carved into it. I stopped, breathless and a little awed. Stepping inside the silent enclosure I found myself surrounded by nearly two dozen graves. Many were covered by full length stones, engraved with mostly indiscernible names and dates. A few bore skulls and crossbones or swords. More memorials hung on the walls, including a couple of surprisingly more recent stones.

As I stood in that ancient Buchanan cemetery, I felt an emotion I can barely describe. I was among my people. I’d come home to a place I’d never been before, and the welcome was real. It was a site forgotten, so primal that generations who would have visited it were, themselves, long gone, buried somewhere else, hopefully remembered.

The stones were in perfect condition for their time. The plants and moss growing around and through them were turning dust back to dust. The wall served a purpose, carving out a place and holding it sacred for the remains lying within. The huge trees surrounding the site stood as sentinel guards. Even the slight wind rustling through served as a reminder that the elements move on, life continues and we honor our dead in our individually peculiar, reverent ways.

I can’t visit a cemetery without remembering that one. I’ll likely never see it again. I’m not even sure I could find it. But I discovered it, ran to it, explored it, sat quietly in it, pondered my people whose remains lie there and embraced the depth of my Scottish roots. There’s a deep, comforting connection in all of that.

Perhaps that’s why we do this, why we commit those whom we love who’ve passed on to a specific place, whether it be a plot of territory or ashes across a mountainside. We want to go back to the last place they were, grasping for comfort in even that thinnest of connection.

Personally, I already know where I’ll be — lying among ancestors who stretch back six generations before me. My families will know where to find me.

Perhaps they’ll also find that deep, comforting connection there.

D. Louise Brown lives in Layton. She writes a biweekly column for the Standard-Examiner.