My grandmother lived the last few years of her life with my mother–so I got to see her often. She was pleasant and quite frequently jolly and made everyone around her feel good. She sat in the big picture window in a Lazy-boy rocker–watching the world unfold around us. She knew who visited whom and for how long!
Each day, she checked the obituaries in the newspapers–as older people often do–and said aloud: “I’m not there today! I’m still here.”
Grandmother loved to go to the cemetery–to see who was there. And she always remarked aloud: “I’m not there today! I’m still here.”
There are a good number of cemetery sites that include tombstone readings–what we need is a one-stop access to them all. Maybe Illya will include them on his LiveRoots site. Or Steve Morse could add them to his “One Stop” site. In the meantime, check out these:
Names In Stone includes maps of the cemeteries so you can see where the grave is located and identify surrounding graves that may include relatives or other pedigree ancestors. You can visit the cemetery without leaving home.
World Burial Index is a fee site with a FREE surname search. It includes church memorials as well as outside burials for the British Isles primarily and other locations too. Entries are added every day. You can add your own family memorials including photographs.
While we can wish for free data, in order for a site to have longevity–it must have some way to support itself and the people who devote time daily to increase its value for us.
FREE sometimes is overrated–with skimpy details or even inaccurate or sloppy data. Takes real commitment to genealogy and ancestors to do it all for free and keep it quality stuff.
So I recommend:
- Set up a genealogy budget. What you can spend in any given month. I had a friend who used coupon money to fund research trips, photocopies, and subscriptions.
- Sign-up periodically with fee sites to glean their current assets for information on your ancestors.
- Change sign-ups to match your budget and your research focus.
And, hopefully, someone with the technical skill will set up a cemetery portal where we can access, with a click or two, all the cemetery sites. Or, if there already is one–please send me the link and I will share it with everybody! Your favorite genealogist, Arlene Eakle http://www.arleneeakle.com
PS I am getting ready to launch my Scots-Irish blog–stay tuned.