My first Gravehunt!!!

[weste]

I been to some graveyards the last year or so. Some parts subsiding and you are wary of falling into the grave or breaking a leg etc. When you compare the state to the american war cemetry at cambridge but i suppose a lot of care and expense is put into that.  It does put things into perspective though. Also 2 funeral i went to about 3 months ago, i found myself looking around the graves at the names. One next to where my cousin was being buried had the surname as my paternal side. Also one of the gardeners in cem apparently used to go out with my cousin! At the other funeral relatives looked for some graves of the older family, they thought one was our uncle.  I realised after i know it was n't.  Uncle's memorial stone was small and you could n't read it anymore  and the one they stood by if they'd bent down to read it, they would have seen that was a married man and wife's grave and he was single. Also they were after another cousins grave who died when she was 5, i think i've got the ref, need to sort my rels out i think.

[mrs.tenacious]

This brought back memories of my first gravehunt a couple of years ago, when my 80yr-old Dad & I decided at the last minute to have a mooch about the area where his ancestors came from. 

We hadn't planned to visit the graveyard, so hadn't organised ourselves at all - has anyone tried to take a gravestone inscription rubbing with nothing but an ordinary HB pencil and a few pieces of A4 lined paper? 

It doesn't work that well 

[weste]

No i had n'teven thought about a rubbing but fortunately had a camera at the time and realised how well some writing can come out even if weathered. When i bought a new mobile phone i made sure i had a reasonable camera on!

[mrs.tenacious]

A couple of the relevant gravestones we found had one or two birth or death years with the last two digits that were difficult to read  with the naked eye.  I thought that 'rubbing' might highlight the engraving more accurately.

How does a photo (albeit taken with a good camera) better the writing compared with the naked eye view - is it because of the lighting or shading captured on the camera? 

[RedMystic]

I've had fairly good luck with photographing gravestones.

Remember, if you have a pic of a marker that is difficult to read, the folks on the Deciphering & Recognition part of the RootsChat board are a fabulous resource. They do manipulations, create negative images, etc.

Their assistance has proven invaluable to me a few times & I've seen them accomplish similar results for others.

[Lal]

Tip - next time you upgrade your mobile phone, go for a good smartphone with a decent camera. You never go out without your phone these days, so you will also never forget to take your camera when on a grave hunt!

I always try and look systematically, going from row to row, and just take a picture of anything remotely likely, and sift through them later.

Last field trip I had, I took my dad as he likes old graveyards too, but we had a bit of an upset because this particular churchyard isn't being very well looked after and the memorial plaques for those cremated had been tossed onto a compost heap. One of them was for an old friend of his so he got quite upset about that.

I also found an old family grave (the flat stone type) that had got almost completely mossed over since the last time I saw it and was in a quandary about whether it was OK to clear the moss off it.

[Willow 4873]

I tried to find my Great Grandparents in Heath Town Churchyard but it is so overgrown I had no chance. Now found out from my uncle the general area they are buried in so the project for the summer is to find them and tidy it up

So many people have complained that they say they are going to cut back some of the undergrowth and yes I will take flowers when I find them. After searching through records to find them I wouldn't say I know them well but they are still my family and I don't think they should be forgotten.

My next aim to to find the details on my Great Uncle Samuel who was killed in WW1 and make sure he is mentioned on one of Wolverhamptons war memorials even if I have to pay for it myself!

Willow x

I have found the memorial! http://www.wolverhamptonwarmemorials.org.uk/memorial_pages/Church/st_johns_war_memorial.htm he is commemorated with his two half brothers Matthew Ralph and James Ralph

I will have to make a vist on one of my lunch times to pay my respects

Willow x

[RedMystic]

That's wonderful Willow!

From one family history addict & graveyard crazy to another.

[bykerlads]

My best grave story is the fact that a kind tour guide from Poppy Tours( Royal British Legion) undertook to find and photograph the CWGC grave of my mother's brother in Imphal, India.
He was killed in WW2 but we didn't know where he was buried until I looked on the CWGC web-site. Imphal is very near Burma an unstable region over the years but they do do tours there now.
We were so very grateful to have a photo of my uncle's final resting place, beautifully tended as are all Commonwealth War Graves.