Genealogy Insider - Cemeteries

Ancestry.com Cemetery Collection Free Through Nov. 5

Diane — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:02:20 GMT

This just in: Ancestry.com is making its "creepiest collections"—records of cemeteries and gravestones free through next Thursday, Nov. 5. You will need to register for a free Ancestry.com account to view details of your search results.

Use the search box on this Halloween landing page to access the free databases.

Click here to see the list of cemetery indexes and inscriptions included in this offer.

History Next Door

Diane — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:27:09 GMT

Staying up late the night before you return to work after a vacation does not prolong the vacation.

I’m trying to jump back in the saddle after leaf-peeping in Maine and New Hampshire (with a side trip to the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream factory in Waterbury, Vt.), and sightseeing in Boston.

Having grown up in a Midwestern suburb, I find it remarkable that some people leave their homes or offices every day and walk by a 350-year-old cemetery, or the meeting hall where the assembly began that resulted in the 1773 Boston Tea Party, or the church where patriots hung two lanterns in 1775 to warn colonists that British soldiers were on the way.

One stop on the Freedom Trail, which links Boston sites instrumental to the Revolution, is Copp’s Hill Burying Ground in the North End, just up the hill from the Old North Church.

The oldest surviving inscription on a stone at Copp's Hill is for the two-week-old son of David Copp and his wife, Obedience. The baby died Dec. 22, 1661.

An informational marker pointed out interesting gravestones, including this one, created from another, previously carved gravestone. You can see the old inscription, upside-down on the back:

And here’s the front of the reused stone, marking the grave of Theodore James, who died Sept. 25, 1815:

It’s hard to tell in this photo, but the inscription on Mary Waters’ tombstone gives the names of her husband when she died and her former husband.

You can search Copps Hill interments at Find-a-Grave.

You can read Copp’s Hill historical markers online at the Historical Marker Database. Start with this one, then click the links under Other Nearby Markers.

For Lisa Louise Cooke's demo on using photo-editing software to improve the readability of your gravestone photos, see our video page.

Ask and answer cemetery research questions in Family Tree Magazine’s Cemetery Central Forum (note you must register with the Forum to post).

UGOs (Unidentified Genealogical Objects)

Diane — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:05:30 GMT

Yesterday evening, our company had a trade show, wherein each community (genealogy, writing, woodworking, crafts, etc.) displayed its latest how-to publications and resources.

The Family Tree Magazine staff enjoyed showing off our CDs, webinars and forthcoming Family Tree Legacies book, and sharing genealogy tips with coworkers. I think one guy is searching the free 1911 Irish census as I type this.

The best part was our guessing game. For a chance to win a prize, our colleagues guessed the identity of this object, commonly used in the course of genealogy research:

Here were some of their guesses (obviously, we’re dealing with some wise guys here):

“toddler’s crayon”
“fossilized chocolate cake”
“worry stone” (over those unsolved brick walls, we presume)
“paper weight”
“scrubber to get your pen started” (huh?)
“thumbprinter thingie”
“It’s used to help you separate papers. You rub your fingers on it so you can easily rifle through your records”
"a secret listening device"
“a template for drawing circles for names on your family tree”
“a starter for the center of your family tree”

What’s your guess?

The correct answer is tombstone rubbing wax, used for making impressions of tombstones. The astute Holly Davis, an editor over at The Artist’s Magazine, is the winner of a scrapbook album kit!

For step-by-step instructions on making tombstone rubbings (including ensuring the stone is sound), see this FamilyTreeMagazine.com article.

And to avoid arrest while making said tombstone rubbing, read our Now What? blog post.

Burr Oak Cemetery Tombstone Images Posted Online

Diane — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:04:29 GMT

The Cook County (Ill.) sherrif’s office has set up a public database to help families affected by the shocking crimes at Burr Oak Cemetery.

In July, authorities announced that about 300 graves in the historically African-American cemetery near Chicago had been dug up, the bodies dumped, and the plots resold. Four cemetery workers are accused of the crime.

Those looking for relatives’ grave sites at the cemetery can search an online database of tombstone images. So far, it has 9,500 names from the roughly 100,000 grave sites.

Searchers can type in a name or browse by year. There’s also a link to view photos of markers with unknown burial years.

Read more about this tragedy in the articles linked here.

Examiner.com's African-American genealogy writer, Michael Hait, takes a close look at the database here.

The Mystery of the Stray Headstone

Diane — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:17:52 GMT

About a year ago, a headstone appeared on the side of a road in the city of Weed, Calif.

Jennifer Bryan, a member of the Siskiyou County Genealogical Society in Yreka, Calif., is trying to find out where it belongs. The stone has never been set into concrete, she says, but it is engraved:

William C. Vann
Dec., 7, 1910 - May 5, 1972

“We’ve checked with all the local cemeteries, monument stone carvers and funeral homes, and haven’t been able to local where this headstone belongs,” Jennifer writes. “We realize this may be a ‘rejected’ headstone, or perhaps it was lost in shipping and the engraver has created a new one for the family by now.”

But in case William C. Vann’s family (or maybe a delivery truck driver who got in a bit of hot water) is wondering what became of his headstone, Jennifer and her fellow society members are asking for your help.

Anyone researching a Vann family, possibly in California, that William may have belonged to? Got a theory how the stone came to be on the roadside? Click Comments (below) to post here.

Here’s a photo of the stone:

Search Burials and Cemetery Maps on New Site

Diane — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 14:10:23 GMT

This site is just getting off the ground, but it’ll be really cool if it takes off.

Names in Stone is a cemetery mapping site—you can search for a grave and get a map showing where it is in the cemetery and whose plots are nearby.

Only a handful of cemeteries are covered as yet, mostly in Utah, Idaho, Nevada and California.

You can encourage larger, managed cemeteries to participate, or map smaller, volunteer-run cemeteries yourself and upload the data. (Get instructions on the site. More mapping tips are on an associated blog called Grave Mappers.)

It’s free to search on a name and see available details from that person’s headstone—could be birth and death dates, burial date, parents’ names, military service, etc.—as well as the grave location (shown below), cemetery name, cemetery map, address, GPS coordinates and driving directions.

You can purchase virtual gravestone décor; you decorate the stone yourself by dragging and dropping images of flowers and swags.

Paying members ($7.95 per month, $39.99 per year) can save searches, save a “cemeteries of interest” list, be notified of matches to automated searches and receive discounts on gravestone décor.

Search Burials in Two English Counties (Mostly Free!)

Diane — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 13:40:06 GMT

Richard Smart wrote me from across the pond about an organization he directs, The National Archive of Memorial Inscriptions.

On its Web site, you’ll find a database of 170,000 names from 580 burial grounds in Bedfordshire and Norfolk, and it’s added to regularly.

You can search by name, a death date range, age range at death, county, and place. Wildcards work: ? stands for one letter; * (asterisk) substitutes for any number of letters.

You get quite a bit of information for free—first and last name, burial ground and county, and date of death. Buy the full inscription for 4 pounds (about $6), and for most records, add historical text, a photo of the church and/or a plan of the graveyard for 1 pound (about $1.50) each.

Fuzzy on the details of your ancestor’s burial, or want to see who else is in a graveyard?

Smart shared this tip for browsing: “If you enter any place from the Availability page, in either Bedfordshire or Norfolk, into the Place box on the home page, you will get free of charge a listing of all the data available from that place, except for the actual inscription.”

San Francisco's Historic Mission Dolores Cemetery

Diane — Fri, 02 May 2008 13:03:39 GMT

Last week after talking about kids’ genealogy in Sacramento, Calif., I met up with my sister in San Francisco for a couple of days (she lives 20 minutes from me here in Cincinnati, but was also out West on business).

One of my favorite sights was Mission Dolores, the popular name for the Misión San Francisco de Asís since it was founded June 29, 1776. The present mission chapel, built in 1791, is a block and a half away from the first location.

Still home to an active parish, it’s the oldest intact building in San Francisco—the thick adobe walls survived the 1906 earthquake. Next door is the Mission Dolores Basilica, first built around 1876 and rebuilt after suffering severe quake damage.

The walled Mission Cemetery, final resting place for Ohlone, Miwok and other indigenous peoples as well as notable pioneers, is the only cemetery left within city limits.

The cemetery is smaller today than it once was, but has been restored with native plantings.

You can find known Mission Dolores burials listed at FindaGrave. Read a bit more about the cemetery’s past in the transcribed historical newspaper articles on SFGenealogy.com.