FTU instructor and active Find a Grave volunteer Diana Crisman Smith explains how you can help preserve the genealogy in historic cemeteries and make it accessible to fellow genealogists.



Tip #1: The Dead Live At Find-a-Grave--Look here first before leaving home. Use maps to find the location (street/GPS).

Tip #2: The Dead Can Move--Cemetery names change over time, people can be disinterred and move to a new cemetery (the death record/book, family notes lists the wrong location).

Tip #3: The Dead Can Talk

• Find the cemetery office/superintendent by phone, email or before setting out to the cemetery get from them the cemetery map, plot # card, date of burial, burials without stones
• Ask for help
• Remember your manners
• Bring them treats or a check
• Find out where the Town/City Hall is located
• Use the bathroom
• Take as many photos as you can of the stone (front, back, all sides/angles), and a photo of you with your ancestor as a separate shot
• Take photos of the surrounding stones (or write down the surnames)
  

Tip #4: Visit the Dead with a Boneyard Buddy--When you get to the cemetery or burial location, pretend you are going to have to direct another person to the location. Take photos or videos of the entrance, the sign, the parking or a surrounding landmark and write down how to get to the section you located. I can guarantee that if you don't do this, you will have to go back.

• Watch the online video Grave Transformations.
• Get the book Grave Humor at ShopFamilyTree.com