Category: Cemeteries

5 Steps to Better Tombstone Photographs

Take clearer, more legible photos of your ancestors' graves with these easy tips.

Hidden Meanings of 20 Gravestone Symbols

A walk through a cemetery can be a haunting, yet beautiful and reflective, experience. What secrets might your ancestors' tombstones reveal?

Supreme Court Hears Case About Cemetery-Access Law

Genealogy clashes with property rights in a Pennsylvania cemetery-access law. The highest court in the land heard the arguments from both sides.

Top 5 Cemetery Websites for Finding Your Family’s Tombstones

Cemeteries are critical genealogical resources, but they're often miles and miles from where you live. Cemetery websites can help you virtually visit.

Cemetery Superstitions, Little-Known Facts and Genealogy Secrets

Do you love everything about doing genealogy in cemeteries—finding family burial places, studying old stones, and discovering discovering old records? Learn secrets of cemetery research with Joy Neighbors, author of The Family Tree Cemetery Field Guide.

How to Use Find A Grave to Locate Ancestors in 9 Steps

Here’s a quick look at Find A Grave, and how to search it for your ancestors' gravestone photos and burial information.

free family tree chart

Using Cemetery Plot Maps in Your Genealogy Research

Cemeteries are some of genealogists' favorite haunts. Learn about cemetery plot maps and how they can help your research there.

Top 8 Best Cemetery Apps

Take your genealogy research into the field with these great cemetery apps.

9 Things You Can Learn About Your Ancestors From the Cemetery

Changing scenery and pleasant temperatures make Fall an especially good time to visit cemeteries (alongside a genealogy buddy for fun and safety). Seeing the gravestone and viewing records in the cemetery office may yield ancestry information you won't find in an online database of burials—although online databases are very helpful...

Using Photos to Read an Ancestor’s Headstone

Learn how to use photo-editing software to read your ancestors' illegible gravestones.

Tombstone Tales

These four questions will make your ancestral grave markers and cemeteries come alive with family history.

Now What?: Grave Shelters

Q. I've been trying to find more about the low wooden structures built over some graves in mostly (or only?) Southern cemeteries. A. Grave houses, also called a grave shelters, were common in the South, especially Appalachian areas, to protect loved ones' graves from the elements and grave robbers...

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