GPS ANY ONE?
Personally, I make it a point not to be tracked, traced or pinpointed, but I guess it has it's redeeming factors, for some...... A lot of cemeteries on Find a Grave now have coordinates posted as to where the grave is, and I have to say.... WHY? I realize a lot of people have a shortage on time to take their time with anything, because 24 hour days and all, but it is OK to slow down, sometimes. I also realize a lot of people researching their family, don't really enjoy the process, they just want to "fill it in" and be done with something on their "to do" list..... I don't "get" that, but, I understand. Unless there is no office on the premises and the cemetery spans10 city blocks, you may be tempted to do a quick hit-and-run, but you miss so much doing it that way..... there's the peace and quiet to enjoy while you're searching for your family members and those that were important to them.... there's the connecting of dots when you find that surname that is part of your tree, but never had information past it being the surname of a spouse and there's the reflecting on the circumstances your family lived in. Have you ever walked a cemetery, and there is a section with 8 or 9 graves with the same date of death, that got you wondering if there was a disaster or illnes going thru town at that particular time? If you had run up to the grave, took a picture and left, that would have been a part of your ancestors life you would not know (or wonder) about.... Even if that event itself didn't impact your ancestor, if they lived in that town, at that time, it affected their life, and may be worth exploring.
If you want to visit family, you should take the time to do so. If you don't want to or don't have the time, to take the time, do a volunteer a favor, and request a photo after putting the memorial up for your ancestor :-)
If you're trying to find family your first stop should probably be the office to see if there are more family members there, or if they might have information to share, and most either can explain your way to the gravesite, or have map where they can mark where the markers are, approximately. So having a GPS coordinate isn't as important to me as the actual information.... but I can see where it would come in handy, at times. Do I add GPS to my posted photographs? Nope! Wouldn't know how :-)
You see, I'm probably a little persnickity about my research. I LIKE it, I like the process! For one, the initial find and connecting the dots later on, is 9/10th of the fun, but also the process of looking to the information surrounding the person you're looking for, can give you insight in family dynamics as well as place within the community. You do it (I hope!) with census records and passenger list and military enlistment, because the neighbor may be a relative that traveled across the country with "your" family, but you never knew where they went off to, the wife to be, may have been on the same ship, as that 20 year old carpenter, that moved to the US, or that inlaw you can't figure out how he ended up in the family may have served with the brother of his future wife...... The cemetery is no different in giving information you didn't have when you started looking. It not only gives you information on the burial, but also on the people themselves if you look around at a cemetery. Some families have been buried in the same area for as long as the cemetery is in operation, others have individual graves, some keep the family unit together, with exclusion of spouses and children, some have one elaborate marker, and smaller almost non-descript ones for the family members that were not part of the original burial.... It's part of who they were, and worth knowing.
June 29, 2025
WALK A CEMETERY OR 2......
Most people researching their family tree finds themselves at a cemetery at one time or another, trying to find that elusive branch that seems to have vanished without leaving a trail. They're known, but never seen in findable records, until you glimps sight of them as a sidenote on somebody elses record......
So, about those cemetery finds. In
the US, you
can find those seemingly lost relatives, even 150 years after they have
been laid to rest. Their
rest IS eternal. This is not the case in other countries. Definitely not
in The Netherlands, not sure about Belgium or Germany, but in this
country with more people than can comfortably fit within its
borders..... Your eternal rest has an expiration date!! Your first
stay is a mandatory 10 years, after that, the family can re-up, for a
price. If there is no family, the family cannot be located or is not
willing to pay your rental fee, you're done. The grave gets "processed"
for re-use. Some cemeteries leave the burial alone, until the next burial
goes over top, some take away and destroy the marker to indicate the
location is available, but either way, there is no indication who was
buried there once the site gets released. SO..... if you read this, are
in The Netherlands or live near a cemetery that doesn''t seem to have
any
markers older dan 40 years or so, and have the time.... PLEASE take
pictures of the markers, and the cemetery and post them to Find A Grave
for safe keeping and for the next generation to find. If you don't have the time to make the memorials and transcribe the markers, there is a
place you can upload the pictures, and volunteers will swoop in and do
the work with pleasure. All they need is the cemetery name and town it
is located in, and they will do the rest. I believe there is even a way to name the cemetery, and upload all the pictures to that spot.
If I go out to take volunteer pictures, I usually will try to at least
take pictures of people with the same name and surnames that match the
secondary names on markers, like I do for my own research. if I'm short on time, or if the cemetery is
really big,I stick to the same surname, and if I by chance find the "inlaw" name, I'll take it along too, but I won't go searching. Maybe, if you're part of a historical society (Heemkunde club as they are called here) or
genealogy club, or even if you just want to get the whole family involved..... Pack a
lunch, grab a group of people, split up the cemetery in blocks and take
those pictures. Around memorial day in the US, is a great time, because most
cemeteries will have been picked up and cleaned up for the
holiday, so the pictures will show the markers and the surroundings at
its best. Here, keeping the burial plot neat is up to the family, so you may need to bring a soft brush and consider pulling some weeds ;-)
WATCH YOUR DATES!!!
Checking and double checking if you have the right dates is pretty much second nature in this hobby, so why am I mentioning this?
Not everybody writes the dates the same! I found this out the hard way, even while VERY aware that the Dutch dates are backwards from the American ones. I KNOW that 09-05-1961 means May 9, 1961 in most parts of Europe and September 5, 1961 in the US, and STILL, I sent my cousin a birthday card in September, while his birthday was in May...... SO if you have dates spanning more countries (or maybe, even when you don't), use the month spelled out, just to make it so you don't second guess 600 dates of birth and 486 death dates down the road (I'm double checking every last one of them!! because a) I altered some, that I caught, without second guessing the ones around them and b) I just don't remember/know which ones are in which date format and even if I switch to full spelled out month, the effect is the same, although the ones with a date over 12 will cause a serious headache for the programm......)
Also, before you enter any dates into your research in any form, do yourself a favor and find a date over 12 and see where in their records that number goes..... I guess the best way to make sure you have the actual, "good" date is a vital record, because the countries I have needed them from always have the full date spelled out as "the ninth day of May in the year onethousandninehundredandsixtyone" or nineteenhundredandsixtyone.... and with AI taking over, this may be the way we have to start spelling out dates again, but that's another thought that doesn't quite belong here. LOL!!
April 6, 2025
No comments:
Post a Comment