A genealogy enthusiast from Nebraska, helped solve the mystery of the lost gravestone.

Several years ago, a gravestone bearing the name of J.J. Hlavac was found in Marne Creek in Yankton. No one knew where it came from.

Enter Brad Kellogg of Wakefield, Neb., who runs a nonprofit Web site that collects photos of South Dakota gravestones for genealogical purposes. He says another genealogy buff matched the information on the gravestone to a record of a burial at a cemetery in Tabor, about 17 miles from Yankton.

And when Kellogg called to check with a source for the Tabor cemetery, he ended up talking with Mary Ann Vanecek. It turns out J.J. Hlavac, who died in 1910, was her husband's grandfather.

Vanecek says the family had been looking for the lost gravestone for some time.

No one knows how it ended up in the creek several years ago.

© 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.