TIP OF THE WEEK – SPRING IS CEMETERY SEASON

By Kate Penney Howard

Spring is cemetery season for genealogists. Here are the field notes I wish someone had given me when I started.

Bring a kit, but keep it reasonable. You don’t need a backpack full of equipment you won’t use. My kit includes a wide-brim hat, water, sunscreen, and a soft natural-bristle brush. I also carry a spray bottle with distilled water, a rigid notebook, two pens, a small mirror, and a phone with a fully charged battery. I’ve stopped carrying chalk, shaving cream, and flour. Preservation professionals have been clear for over a decade: these substances damage stone.

Document the whole plot, not just the one stone. Family burials cluster. A single ancestor might share a plot with a sibling who died in childhood, a first wife you didn’t know existed, or a cousin whose name appears on no other record. Take a wide photograph of the plot before you zoom in. Note the stones on either side. Note the section and row if the cemetery is mapped.

Read light, not stone. A weathered inscription often reads better at dawn or late afternoon, when the sun strikes the surface at a shallow angle. If you can’t wait for the right time of day, bring a mirror. Stand with your back to the sun, hold the mirror at roughly 45 degrees, and bounce the light across the stone. The shadows in the carved letters will deepen. This costs nothing and harms nothing.

Photograph with care. Shoot straight on, not at an angle. Fill the frame with the stone and not much else. Take one shot for the dates and names, then take a wider shot that shows context, material, and condition. If the inscription is hard to read, take the same photo three times at different exposures. Modern phones do this automatically in HDR mode.

Record as you go. Memory is the least reliable field tool. Before you leave the cemetery, open your notebook. Write the cemetery name, the date of your visit, the weather, and the section if known. Sketch a rough map of where each photographed stone sits. Skip this step, and you’ll return to your desk with thirty-seven images of granite and no idea which one is your great-grandmother.

Respect the living, too. Small rural cemeteries often sit on private land or are maintained by township trustees. Check before you visit. FindAGrave and BillionGraves both list cemetery types and sometimes contact information. A phone call ahead is rarely refused and often rewarded; the person with the key frequently knows more about the cemetery’s history than anything written down.

Upload afterwards. If you photograph a stone that isn’t yet on FindAGrave or BillionGraves, consider adding it. Your picture becomes a permanent record accessible to researchers who may never visit the site. Stones weather. Cemeteries are lost to neglect, development, and flooding. Your image today may be the only image in fifty years.

One last thought. Cemeteries are not laboratories. The people buried there had names and faces and people who loved them. Walk gently. Leave nothing except footprints, and take nothing except photographs and field notes.  Join SGS Today

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