Copyright 2013 Tami Pelling. Used with permission

by Tami K. Pelling, PLCGS. Staff, The National Institute for Genealogical Studies

Just  as  many  of  our  ancestors  frequently  visited  cemeteries  on  Sunday  afternoon  to  enjoy  a picnic, tend to the care of a gravesite, or pay respect to their loved ones—we follow in their footsteps. A picnic in the cemetery as a child with my great aunt, Lucille, is a memory that I will always treasure.  Another  childhood  memory  that  I  hold  just  as  dear  is  traveling  from cemetery to cemetery with my mother and Lucille to place flowers on  graves of family members—every holiday, birthday, and anniversary—of course, during the warmer months. So now that it’s summer, you might be ready to plan your own cemetery trips.

But first, a bit of caution. Safety first!  It doesn’t matter whether you are visiting a big city cemetery or a pioneer cemetery surrounded  by  cornfields and  woods. Safety cannot be emphasized enough–take someone with you and bring a fully charged cell phone!

In planning a cemetery trip, the first item on the agenda is to learn the location of the cemetery or cemeteries you wish to visit and determine if they are located on private property, governed by a trustee, association, organization, or corporation. If you are unfamiliar with the area, you may wish  to  contact  one  of  the  local  funeral  homes,  genealogical  or  historical  society,  library,  or government office to determine ownership. At the same time, inquire whether the cemetery has an office along with contact information. It is important to remember if the  cemetery  is  located  on  private  property  and  the  landowner  does  not  allow  access  to  the cemetery,  you  can  be  charged  with  trespassing. The landowner should be contacted prior to the visit to gain  permission to access the cemetery and discuss any  restrictions.

Second, consider what your purpose in going to the cemetery. Do you wish to locate the gravesite of your ancestors? Are you looking to survey, transcribe, and photograph the cemetery? If your visit to the cemetery is to locate the gravesite of your ancestors, a cemetery map should be obtained. If a cemetery map is not available, print a satellite view of the cemetery from Google Maps. The satellite image of the cemetery will allow you to study the surrounding area. If children will visit the cemetery with you, remind them of proper cemetery etiquette. Children can be an asset—prepare index cards with the names of the individuals you seek. These items allow the children to help search for the gravestones, place and assist in their letter identification and/or reading skills. If your purpose is to photograph your ancestor’s gravesite or the entire cemetery, you should determine if photographs are allowed. Some cemeteries  may  not allow  visitors  to take  photographs—even  of  their  own family  gravesite. Many  small  inactive  cemeteries  do  not  have  a photograph  policy;  however,  it  is  best  to  be  prepared  prior to  the  trip. It would be most unfortunate to learn upon arrival that access to the cemetery will not be granted or photographs are not allowed.

Third, prepare your cemetery kit. Just like planning a research trip to the library, archive, courthouse, etc., you must be prepared and bring along necessary tools. With today’s technology, many people can visit the local cemetery with just one tool—their cell phone. With a cell phone in hand, you can do everything from use map and GPS features as well as take photographs, notes and upload data. BillionGraves  has  a  wonderful  app  that  can  be  used  in  the  cemetery  while  photographing tombstones. The app attaches the GPS coordinates to the photograph. Cemetery  notes  can  be  taken in  many  formats  while  utilizing  your  favorite  app.  Audio and video can be recorded. Family group sheets, pedigree charts, and family notes can also be viewed through an app.

My cemetery kit may contain more items than the average cemetery visitor. This cemetery  kit  list  has  been  compiled  over  many  years  of visiting,  transcribing,  photographing, plotting/mapping,  and  restoring  cemeteries  (restoration supplies  have  been  omitted  from  this list).  Everyone is different and, therefore, your cemetery kit will include supplies that are best suited  to your needs. Here are a few items from my kit:

Cemetery Kit

Road Map

Cemetery Map

GPS

Burial list of family members

Pedigree charts, family group sheets, research log

Notebook/paper or note taking app

Pen, pencil, pencil sharpener

Clipboard(s)

Flowers

Water bottle and snacks

First aid kit

Hand sanitizer

Sunscreen

Hat, bandanna

Kleenex

Insect repellent

Cell phone and cell phone charger

Camera and extra batteries

Compass

Rubber gloves or gardening gloves (protect hands from bird droppings, etc.)

Bottled water and small spray bottle (wash bird droppings, etc. from stone)

Whisk broom (brush away grass and leaves)

Gardner knee pads (protect knees  from uneven ground and clothing  from dirt)

Pruners, shears (remove growth next to stone to aid in reading)

Small chair (you might wish to stay awhile)

Bag (to remove trash from cemetery)

Want to learn more about researching cemeteries? Check out our US: Cemetery and Mortuary Records course.

Earlier, we spotlighted the US: Newspaper Records  course as part of the My Favorite Course blog series. Are newspapers your favorite genealogy source? Here’s a tip from the course.

The website Chronicling  America  is  a  repository of  select digitized  newspapers covering the years 1836-1922.

But Chronicling America offers more than digitized newspapers. Chronicling  America is  an  online  resource  that  can  be  used  to  identify newspapers  in  a  particular  area  and  time  period. Each  listing  provides details  about  the  newspaper,  such  as  dates  of  publication,  frequency,  and  language,  as  well  as  what  repositories  hold  either original  or  microform versions  of  the  newspaper.

Chronicling  America is  based  on  records  created  during  the  US  Newspaper Program that ran from 1982 to 2009. To  use  this  resource,  visit Chronicling  America and  click  on  the  button that  says  “US  Newspaper  Directory,  1690-Present.”  You  can  browse  by newspaper title using the letters at the top (e.g., clicking on the letter “C” will  list  all  the  newspapers  that  begin  with  the  letter  “c”).  Alternatively,  you  can search for newspapers in  a particular state, county, or  city, using the corresponding drop-down menus, and further limit the time period by selecting a year range. There are other search options such as keyword and language. You can also search by ethnicity or occupation to find specialty newspapers.  When you find a newspaper of interest, you can view the record for more details,   such   as   frequency   of   publication,   dates   of publication,   and  alternate titles. To see a list of repositories that have the newspaper, click on the link “Libraries That Have It” at the top of the record.

To learn more about newspapers and where they can be found, register for the US: Newspaper Records course.

By Emma Whaley Compton, PLCGS

While studying for the American Records Certificate with the National Institute for Genealogical Studies, one of my favorite courses included in the program was US: Newspaper Records. If I had to choose a favorite record group for research, it would be newspapers, so it’s perhaps no surprise that I greatly enjoyed this course!

When you think about newspaper research, the most obvious thing that comes to mind is obituaries, which are a wonderful source of genealogical information, particularly if vital records are hard to get or may not even exist for that time period but newspapers offer much more to the researcher than just obituaries. You can frequently find birth, engagement, marriage and anniversary announcements and sometimes court cases, divorces, bankruptcies and real estate transactions will also be included.Then there are the regular newspaper stories or perhaps even photographs that may feature ancestors. Small town newspapers have society pages that give great detail about their inhabitant’s lives, such as who was in the hospital, had visitors from out of town, or may have been out of town visiting relatives, hosting a party or taking part in various club activities. Our ancestors didn’t have Facebook or smart phones, so they got all of their news (or gossip!) through the newspapers and we’re fortunate that many of these day to day records have been preserved and are even becoming accessible over the Internet due to digitization projects.

So newspapers can perhaps help us find out information about our ancestors directly, through announcements and articles but they can also help us understand our ancestor’s lives better through studying social history. What events were happening nationally (wars, recessions) or locally that had an impact on their daily lives?  For immigrants, ethnic newspapers helped them keep abreast of what was happening back in their homeland and other specialist newspapers served a similar purpose for religious communities, labor groups or the military.

The US: Newspaper Records course covers all these aspects of newspaper research in much greater detail and also goes into the history of newspapers in the United States. I found this very interesting, it’s surprising to learn how long newspapers have been a part of daily life (and no I’m not going to give that detail away, sign up for the course and find it out yourself!). Perhaps the most important part of this course is that it gives detailed information about how to find newspaper collections on a national and individual state level, so if you’ve always wanted to do newspaper research but didn’t know where to start looking, this should give you some ideas.

Although it’s an advanced level course in the American Records program, this really is a fun course. I knew I’d enjoy it, so I saved this course for last and I wasn’t disappointed. A word of warning though, you may become so immersed in the past when researching in newspapers that whole hours fly by unnoticed!

Bio: Emma Whaley Compton, PLCGS graduated from the National Institute for Genealogical Studies in spring of 2014 with distinction in the English and American Record Certificate Programs. A member of the Association of Professional Genealogists and Co-President of the Imperial Polk Genealogical Society, she started her own genealogy business, AncesTreeFinder Genealogy Research, early in 2015.  When not actively researching or trawling around cemeteries, Emma likes to spend time with her husband and cats, watch TV and movies and read books.  Originally from England, she now lives in Lakeland, Florida.