As you may know if you've read my earlier posts, I'm obsessed with genealogical and historical research. While researching my own family, I found evidence of some family members' graves in other states, and have been unable to visit. Thankfully, there is a site called Find-a-Grave, that catalogs all cemeteries, and provides information about who's buried there. Plus, if you can't get to the cemetery, there are volunteers who will go to the cemetery and photograph the gravestones for you!
So that's what I do. I look at the listings for who has requested photos of their family members' gravestones, and then try to locate them and take photos. Each person has their own listing on the site, complete with their birth and death information, and biographies. It's a wonderful resource, if a creepy hobby.
Most of the time I work in the cemeteries close to home, and while I'm walking my dogs. Shhh, they just made it illegal to walk dogs in our cemeteries! I'm waiting for them to post signs. Anyway, if you're looking for information about your family members, this is a great resource. I think it was bought by Ancestry. com, but a great resource is a great resource.
I hope you're able to locate family members and get photos of graves you're interested in. Sometimes there's no stone. I found relatives located in Boston, and realized the family had no money for a stone. Somewhere in a quaint field in the back of Forest Hills Cemetery called The Field of Manoah, is buried my Great Great Great Grandmother and her daughter. The grandmother died days after giving birth, and the baby, her namesake, Elizabeth, died 22 days later. A sad story, but it explained why that branch of the family moved from Massachusetts to Philadelphia. (Then back again!)
Let me know what you think of my creepy hobby, and follow me for more!
What a great application of crowd-sourcing. I don't think it's creepy at all. Far more creepy to deny our mortality and live like we're going to last forever, I say.
The find-a-grave site is great. I came across my father's grave on there recently, and it was a bit of a shock. I grew up with the story he'd died when I was very young, but it turns out this was either a lie or a misunderstanding on my part.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
The best part of this story is that I was able to contact relatives in England who are related to Elizabeth! This is one of few family lines that came to this continent recently enough to track back to Europe before 1600. The rest were all quite early arrivals.
Sorry to hear of your discovery. That's somewhat more disturbing than me following one family line up, then following another line up, and having them converge on the same set of parents 6 generations ago!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit