I am not afraid of cemeteries. In fact, I enjoy them. For starters, they can't talk back and yell ( I don't believe in ghosts - every time I go where ghosts always appear, they chose not to appear when I'm there - the tour guides scratch their heads because they are used to seeing ghosts and I'm snickering in the back knowing it is my charm that frightened the ghosts away - guess my 2nd job should be ghost-buster). Such nice quiet calm places. And all kinds of history go along with the graves.
I'm searching for the gravesite of my great grandparents first child. He was born in Sherman TX and died in Sherman TX. But they actually lived outside Sherman in the country. He died of scarlet fever when he was a child. Family history says that 15-20 years ago, some of the family got together to purchase a new marker for his grave. Now if I could just figure out where that grave is located. There are lots of cemeteries in the county where they lived and the county where they went to church and worked.
While searching cemeteries, I decided to take pictures of gravestones to upload into Find-A-Grave and I actually uploaded some yesterday. I've added information to my family but never for someone else. And wouldn't you know, after I entered the first 2, I got an email from a family member pointing out a typo! My first entry and I made a typo. Well, it is fixed and I'll be triple careful from now on.
It turns out that pictures loaded to Find A Grave are automatically copyrighted to the person taking the photo. So the pictures I took for 1 family had requested photos in Ancestry.com and I wrote telling them the photos were ready and they could use the photos as they desired with my permission. Seems there have been cases where family members have been notified by Ancestry.com to remove photos because a non-family member took the photo, loaded it to Find A Grave, then family members copied the pictures to their Ancestry.com accounts; all because the non-family member complained. Well, I am here to say photos I take in cemeteries for families can be used by the family; I'm doing this for them, not for personal gain. Anything else is downright silly.
Oh, and if you find this subject icky or scary, please bypass it. Although if you got to this point, it's toooooo late!
I also find cemeteries to be peaceful and comtemplative places. I suppose I might feel a little nervous at night, but I've never tried it! I didn't know there was a place you could post this kind of information--so helpful for those looking for family gravesites. We went on a search in Kentucky with my dad several years back and were successful in finding what we were looking for after some sleuthing!
ReplyDeleteBetsy
Betsy,
DeleteThanks for stopping by! There are 2 places for cemetery photos, Find-A-Grave and also the USGenWeb tombstone project. Both are free. The USGenWeb site is by state then county - that group is trying to keep free genealogy websites.
I'm glad to hear your sleuthing paid off.
I find cemeteries to not be scary, but that they seem to have a rich presence, like you're in a very special history library. Hope that makes sense. I think it's awesome that you posted graves for other families to Find A Grave. I can't even fathom what kind of person does that to make money off people who didn't even ask hem to take the photo. I liken it to the attorneys who magically appear to give you their card when you're in an auto accident, maybe worse. It's more like "You dropped this, would you like to buy it back?"
ReplyDeleteNani,
DeleteI sure wish more people realized the importance of cemeteries and history in general. I've always liked history and thought history classes were so darn boring. Then in college, I took a US History class that went up to the Civil War. It was great as the professor tied in all aspects of history and included the ugly parts too.
Yes, most genealogy sites are now for pay sites except the USGenWeb site. I'll start contributing there as well.
Thanks for stopping by Chris. The pictures of your grandson are sooo cute!
ReplyDelete