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Cemetery Genealogy - The Basics
Warm weather means it's the perfect time to do some genealogy in your local cemeteries and graveyards. Here are the basics to get you started.
Whether you're going to help document a local graveyard for the web, or are looking for your own ancestors, it's always good to start at your local town hall and see what has been done. The town hall should be able to look up any individuals you are interested in and let you know what cemetery they were buried in. The town hall can also let you know if a survey of that particular cemetery has been done in the past, so you're not duplicating efforts.
Many cemeteries don't have any organized list of names or dates at all. They simply buried people as they came, and the town hall kept track of the death certificates. So it may very well be that you are the first person to show an interest in organizing the information about this cemetery.
When you head out to the cemetery, be sure to take along:
* A camera (digital, preferably)
* A notebook and 2 pens
People used to do rubbings of gravestones with large crayons and sheets of paper. As you might imagine, this often harmed older gravestones that had flaking stone pieces. It's far better to take a photo of the stone, which will perfectly show what that stone looked like.
Be sure to be quiet and respectful while in the cemetery. While this may be a fun adventure to you, to many this is a location of recent loss and pain. Give them the peace they deserve.
How to Document a Cemetery
The Dangers of Gravestone Rubbing
Putting Cemetery Information on the Web
Your Guide to Cemetery Research from Amazon.com
Main Listing Page
All Genealogy Articles
Note - Lisa Shea wrote this content for the genealogy site at BellaOnline.com - you might still find this content there as well. That's fine :) I gave permission!
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