Nancy Hendrickson - Cemetery Research on the Internet for Genealogy

Cemetery Research

on the Internet

NANCY HENDRICKSON

Copyright 2014 Green Pony Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

T he publisher and author have attempted to be as accurate as possible in the creation of this book. The content is as accurate as possible at the time of publication.

N ancy Hendrickson is the author of more than a dozen books and hundreds of magazine articles. She is also a contributing editor at Family Tree Magazine and has developed several courses for Family Tree University.

1. The Unofficial Guide to Ancestry.com
2. The Genealogist's U.S. History Pocket Reference: Quick Facts & Timelines of American History to Help Understand Your Ancestors
3. Discover Your Family History Online
4. San Diego Then and Now
5. Historic Photos of Old California
6. Remembering Old California
7. Genealogy At A Glance: Civil War Genealogy Research

1. 101 Of The Best Free Websites For Climbing Your Family Tree
2. Cemetery Research on the Internet
3. How to Find Your Civil War Ancestor
4. Family Tree Case Study
5. How to Use Maps in Genealogy

I f you found this guide useful or if you discovered some previously unknown site that unlocks a door, please take a few moments to leave a review. Its much appreciated. And, if you find a broken link (the Internet does change rapidly) thank you for alerting me so I can make the correction.

Nancy Hendrickson

Genealogy Author

genealogyteach@gmail.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/genealogyteach

A s my thanks for purchasing this guide, Id like to gift you with Nancy Hendricksons Family Tree: 21 Ideas for Your Book, Blog, Newsletter, or Scrapbook . Ive included my favorite ideas for family tree projects let me know which ones you like best.

Sign up here: http://ancestornews.com

B ecause so many people live hundreds or thousands of miles from their 18th or 19th century ancestral homes, on-site cemetery research often has to wait for a family vacation or business trip. How frustrating to find a clue about a family burial plot, only to be prevented by distance to visit in person.

For genealogists, cemeteries can contain a treasure house of clues for further research. The inscription on just one stone can contain a maiden name, a place of birth, the names of children or wives, and cause of death. The carvings on the stone, themselves, can symbolically reflect religious beliefs or the familys expression of grief.

Ive even seen one instance where a biography of the deceased was inscribed on the stone. The inscription included his profession, the names of both of his wives, their maiden names, the dates of the marriages and deaths, and the names of the children born to each wife! I thank my distant cousin, Leo Jane Shore, for purchasing and erecting that stone in the Shore Family Cemetery.

Thats a picture of my sister Vicki (right) and my cousin Peggy trying to do a rubbing of the stone.

Today, thanks to the Internet, the possibility of locating family burial sites without leaving home is excellent. Instead of indefinitely postponing cemetery research, you can now search the Web for cemetery transcriptions, headstone records, and even photographs.

The sites below can help you locate your ancestors burial site, and in some cases even photographs of their tombstones. Most of the cemetery transcriptions on these sites are provided by volunteers, and all of the records are free.

Ive also included a section of taking good quality cemetery photographs, even under poor lighting conditions. These suggestions will help whether youre using a digital camera or the camera in your smartphone or table.

h ttp://interment.net/

What started as a single Web page in 1997, has blossomed into a major site with millions of records from cemeteries world-wide. Cemetery Records Online is billed as The Largest Online Library of Cemetery Records.

Created and maintained by Steve Johnson, this site is frequently updated, with new transcriptions. According to Johnson, people all over the world are interested in compiling cemetery data, and Cemetery Records Online gives them a way to get their work published and distributed, without cost.

Moving into the future, I think we will see more directories and indexes of cemetery locations, says Johnson. There are number of good directories but they only have a fraction of the cemeteries. Even the USGS only has some 110,000 cemeteries logged. Our estimates suggest there are about 1,000,000 burial grounds from coast to coast covering the last 300 years.

The site is very well-organized, and allows visitors to browse cemeteries by locale, or perform a surname search of the entire site. You can browse each U.S. state to the county level, or internationally by country.

The information you will find is dependent upon the volunteer transcribing the cemetery. In some instances, youll find complete burial records, along with a cemetery history and photographs. In other cases you may only find a handful of records. National cemetery records on the site are those which are on file with the U.S. Veterans Administration, like the 71,608 records from Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego, California.

I f you perform a surname search of the site, the results screen shows the number of cemeteries with burials of that surname. The results screen also contains a link to the transcription page that contains the surname.

In addition to transcriptions of cemetery records, this site is an excellent resource center for anyone interested in cemetery research. Articles on the site cover a wide range of cemetery-related subjects, like using GPS to note the exact location of a cemetery (particularly useful for remote and hard-to-find locales), doing headstone rubbings, and getting involved in cemetery preservation.

To get the most of this site, be sure to read the Advanced Search information http://www.interment.net/column/2010/advanced-cemetery-records-search.htm here, youll find search techniques that will help you refine your cemetery searches.