Finding Gravestones

I was asked last week about how to find gravestones.  There are a few ways to do this.

First of all, you can go visit the cemetery yourself and visit the gravestone in person.  This is the funnest option, in my opinion!  But unless you have to, do not go and just wander the cemetery, unless of course, you want to.  :)  It may take a lot longer than you want it to if you just show up and start searching.  So, what do you do?  You contact the one person who can tell you exactly where the grave you're looking for is located.  That person is called a sexton.  If your particular cemetery is still "active," then it will have a sexton taking care of the cemetery.  The sexton knows the cemetery so well that most can point out by memory any particular grave you want.  But if they do not know, then they can also consult their map of the cemetery.

As I was writing this post, I realized I did not know how to find a sexton.  After doing some research online, I found out that one of the two best ways to contact your particular sexton is to search on the city's government website for "cemetery."  Most often, you will find a way to contact the cemetery sexton by phone.  For example, I searched on Mesa, Arizona's site and found this.  And you can also search online for (City), (State) cemetery.  I did that for Pittsburg, Kansas and found a link to the cemetery's website here.

Now that leads me to your second way to find gravestones, checking to see if it's been mapped, photographed, and published online, like Utah cemeteries or Arizona cemeteries.  Do an online search for (State) cemetery records.  Look for a website with a .gov or a .org ending and you're more likely to find an official, valid website.

Third, if your cemetery is not active or abandoned and there is no sexton or government site, then, good luck!  No, just kidding.  Look online again.  There are a few websites put together by, surprise!, volunteers (like my friend Trish), who go out of their way to photograph and transcribe gravestones.  Three of these websites are The United States Cemetery Project, Genealogy.com's Virtual Cemetery, and Find a Grave.  And you can also use lookups, as discussed in one of my previous posts.

Now if you aren't able to find your gravestone online and you go to visit the cemetery in person, then get your information and perhaps share that information and perhaps information for some other gravestones in that cemetery with one of these volunteer sites.  As I mentioned before, genealogy is all about sharing!  Now go out and have some fun finding your ancestors' gravestones!

FREE Friday: Vintage-ifying Photos

Yes, I just made up a word and it means exactly what I want it to mean.  :)  

Anyway, I just love the look of old things.  Maybe it's genetic.  I don't know.  But my mother has loved all things antique for as long as I can remember and our home was decorated in antiques, as are my two older sisters' homes and I try my best for my home, but as we're still in what I consider our "just out of college" days, our furniture and home decorative purchases are few and far between.  So when my friend, Anne, showed me this website, I was instantly ecstatic!  What a simple, free, and easy way to get vintage/antique looking photos of my own family without having to spend the money or needing the skill of using an expensive photo-editing software.

My mind is whirling trying to figure out the very best ideas for using these photos-how to decorate my kids rooms, make a glass tile necklace (like my sister-in-law, Mandy's), or modge-podging a bunch to a wood board for the kitchen, or....okay you get the idea.  Here are some more of my favorites.  

Now go ahead and have fun making your own (side note-you'll need to find the translate into "English" button on the site).

And for all the genealogically minded (myself included) who are nervous about having someone mistake these for actual old pictures, make sure to label each picture with a name and date with a pencil or another acid-free writing utensil.

Some Basics

I've been MIA for a couple of weeks.  Sorry about that.  :)  Now I'm back and ready to blog.  Today's post is going to be quick and simple.  I've had a couple of my readers request some basic information for beginners.  So, here you go!

Locations - How do you format place names when doing genealogical research?  What to include?  Abbreviations?  Now you'll know.  Do not abbreviate, name each jurisdiction, and separate with commas.  So you get this Town, County, State, Country.  United States example: St. David, Cochise, Arizona, United States.  Other countries may have different jurisdictions that do not equate exactly like the United States.  When that happens, start at the smallest jurisdiction and work your way up.  Example: Frutigen, Bern, Switzerland.

Dates - Which format?  Day Month Year, no commas.  Example 25 December 2010

Why not use your own formatting or abbreviations?  Because someday a family member is going to ask you to give them all the information on the family you have and they will not be able to understand your method.  It's easier for you and for all those out there benefiting from the wonderful work you've done.  Now,  Happy Researching!

P.S. If you have a particular topic you're interested in or have a question, please feel free to leave me a note in the comments and I'd be happy to answer it for you.  :)

Visiting the Bern State Archives

For my internship for my Family History degree, I researched 5 Swiss generations.  I spent a summer researching in the Salt Lake Family History Library and then spent two weeks in Switzerland.  For one week, I did research in the Bern State Archive and for the other week, I researched in the small church archive in Frutigen.  Here are some things I learned from that experience.

(1) Sometimes you must have a reservation.  If you don't know if the archive you want to visit requires it, call ahead and make one.  Do not assume they will just let you in.  When I visited the State Archives, I made reservations about 2 months ahead of time and made them for an entire week.  It's changed a bit.  Now genealogists may only come 3 days a year and only on Fridays.  Tough.  I made reservations to research in the Frutigen church and for the two weeks before I was to leave, I could not get in touch with the caretaker just to confirm.  I was so scared I wouldn't be able to research.  And I might not have been able to; she went on vacation!  But her daughter was there and she let me in.  It pays to be friendly to the locals who can help you out.  They gave me the daughter's address and phone number.
(2) There may be a dress code.  I was told I could not wear jeans in Bern, but after a couple of days seeing everyone else in jeans, I asked about it and they said I could wear them.
(3) You may need to fill out a form with a description of your research or why you want to look at their holdings.
(4) Some may require that you absolutely do not have a pen with you.
(5) When I was in the Frutigen archives, the caretaker of the archive had to be there the entire time, the door had to be open, I could not take in a pen, and I could not take pictures inside the archive.
(6) And to those who may not know-do not write in the old books!!!  I was heartsick looking at the modern-day pen underlinings and the circles in the books, the only books available for Frutigen parish records, the ones they stubbornly refuse to have microfilmed.  Once they're gone, they're gone!
(7) You may not get to copy anything.  I could in Bern, but obviously could not in Frutigen.
(8) And last but not least, use your time wisely and enjoy the opportunity!

The door to the Frutigen archive.  A tiny little hole in the wall-literally.

FREE Friday: Genealogy Gems

Genealogy Gems-just what you think it is-little jewels of genealogical news.  Genealogical Gems is a news podcast on I-Tunes and is completely free!  The broadcaster is Lisa Louise Cooke and she gives tips and trade secrets to help you do your own research.  She also interviews genealogical greats and celebrities!  Check out her blog here.  Now, go get listening!  I'm going to have to figure out how to listen to these while I'm exercising; that should make it much more enjoyable.  :)

Citing Sources

As a genealogist, you come to learn that the evidence you find to prove a relationship will not always be a nice, simple document that is, quite frankly, pretty simple to cite.  You may end up needing to cite something like this:

To what am I referring?  This beautiful family quilt.  Embroidered on one side is a remark that this quilt is a 3-generation quilt with hand-made blocks pieced by my husband's great-grandmother, blocks sewn together by his grandmother, and sewn all together by my his mother.  What a treasure!  Not just because it's a beautiful family heirloom, but because it is a piece of evidence linking three generations!  Suddenly those easy-to-follow citation instructions with author, publisher, publication date, etc. don't seem so applicable.

Enter Elizabeth Shown Mills, the woman responsible for creating the current genealogical citation standards.  The citation world of the genealogist was made easier with her first book, Evidence: Citation and Analysis for the Family Historian and continues with the current Evidence Explained:Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace.  I have never tried to cite this before, so I'm going to pull out my handy citation book and see what I can do.

Last Name, Christine. Quilt. ca. 2007. Privately held by Meg Last Name, [address,] Town, State. 2010.

Wow, that's it!  I found out how to cite this really quickly.  It's from page 105, Quick Check Model PRIVATE HOLDINGS: ARTIFACT.

FREE Friday: 20 page photo book

To me, genealogy is so much more than looking for information about ancestors.  It's also creating information about yourself for your descendants.  One great way to do this is to create a photo book and here's how you can get one for free!  If you're new to to the photo service called Picaboo, then you can create an account and get a 20-page photo book for free.  Type in the code AFFLGB and you're good to go!  But don't procrastinate because the code will expire on 31 March 2010.  I'm heading there now to create a baby book for my son.  :)

*Thanks to Kansas City Penny Pinchin' Mama for giving this information.