This document is from Jean Church’s research.

Cemeteries

Wilma Jean Reynolds

There are many types of cemeteries, family, public community, commercial, church, private clubs and lodges, county, hospitals, and other life time care facilities.

One of the best ways to find small cemeteries and graveyards is with a U.S. Geological Survey maps. These maps, maps index and price list may be ordered from U. S. Geological Survey, 1200 South Eads St., Arlington, VA 22202. The next best way and the way to find uncharted graves is by local resident. The local courthouse may have maps showing the area’s known cemeteries and graveyards. You can pull up a lot of maps on the internet to help you. Most cemeteries on Find A Grave and that type of information, give locations and directions to the cemetery.

Tools of the trade when grave searching, a good genealogy buddy to help you, a four wheel drive is better if you expect to be in remote areas. Good walking boots or shoes and old clothes. A six inch ruler, tape measure, Paper, strong pencils, chalk, shaving cream, talcum powder, old rags and paper towels, water in a squirt bottle, stiff brush, toothbrush, a probe, a whistle, an axe, garden rake, hoe, a type of sling to cut briars and weeds. Some friends say and old axe or hoe handle is a great tool to use to push back bushes and to turn over the tombstones if they have fallen over. Be sure to take food and water to give you ample time to complete your search.

When you find a father’s tombstone be sure to look for the mother. They may have children buried between them, or if they are many years between their deaths they may be buried in different places.

Copy all information on the stone as it appears. Use the same spellings as they are on the stones, you may find father and son with surname spelled different. If the date is not clear, sometimes you can trace over it with a lead pencil and paper to make it clear what the date is. If you think it is a 3 and it could be an 8 note that in your notes. If you are in a small graveyard, copy all tombstones, not just those you know are ancestors. More than likely everyone in a family graveyard will be a related.

Information on tombstones varies from a name with no dates, one date (usually one date is a DOD), DOB and DOD, place of b. and d. m. date may give name of spouse, parents, child, religious affiliation, Clubs and lodges, war records, thoughts of survivors. Copy everything just as it appears on the stone. If there is more than one marker, copy both, sometimes a funeral home metal marker will contain the maiden name of a woman, when her tombstone has only her married name.

It is best to take pictures of the area and tombstones, and a picture of the signboard with the name of the cemetery, if there is one. If not give complete directions and locations of site. It is best to transcribe your notes on the cemetery, as soon as you can, while it is fresh in your mind. You may remember details, you failed to put into your notes you made at the cemetery. Enlarging and decreasing the size of a picture will help you in reading unclear dates on the stones. It may be helpful to draw a rough map of the cemetery, giving the locations of the graves.