Finding a Grave

I've been away for a couple of months.  Usually I can't keep myself from writing something but it's been a slightly stressful time and I've been working.  I did take some time to do some volunteer cataloging of cemeteries for Findagrave.com.  I started doing some volunteer photo requests made by people doing genealogy on that site for cemeteries local to me.  In doing this I discovered that I could actually add and manage what they call "Memorials". 

The Cemetery in Warren that I wrote about previously  That's The Rest of the Story...So Far had only one memorial entered until I had entered the Cobleigh monument.  I decided, oddly enough on a fairly damp and drizzly day, I wanted every person in that cemetery to be remembered. (I have issues with being "forgotten" myself, so I assume others should be remembered.). I drove out and I did something I don't generally do.  Instead of wandering and photographing here and there, I examined the layout and started in what I felt was a logical point and took two to three pictures of every single headstone one by one, row by row. 

Then once home and dried off, I went through them and added all the information I could gather and that was readable from the headstones and entered it onto their upload template.  After the upload, I went through and edited and added an image, or in many cases two images, to each listing and linked up husbands and wives, parents and children - if I was absolutely certain.  When I was done I  had added approximately 120 memorials. 

I have gone on since then to do two very small cemeteries in Oakham, Massachusetts - Southwest Cemetery on Lincoln Road (131 memorials - there is one more that is a broken puzzle, I need to see if I can photograph each piece and Photoshop them together to read the names and dates); and Green Hollow on Crawford Road.  Green Hollow happened to have one memorial entered by a family member requesting a photo.  He got a photo and there are now an additional 55 memorials.   I am not terribly interested in the recent dead - and I assume the newer town cemeteries are well documented.  It is those 1700 and early 1800 ones that I am drawn to.

People don't understand why I would do something like this for free.  For me, it fulfills a need I have to do something with a clear start and finish - most of my work does not have that.  And I get to seek out and find all sorts of interesting little cemeteries in beautiful rural locations.  And someone...me...is taking a moment or two to remember each one of those people.  Mothers, Fathers, brothers, sisters, babies, unnamed infants, soldiers. 

Oddly, I don't want a grave or a headstone.  But I want every single one of the people in these to know they are remembered.  I found a small town not far off with 16 little cemeteries, most not cataloged. 16!!!  I am going to go out and shoot four or five at a time.