Welcome back to my blog! I hope that your new year has gotten off to a great start! If you are just now finding my site because of a new year’s resolution to begin working on genealogy, welcome! Feel free to start here reading my posts or go back through older ones. I especially recommend the blog posts covering vital records. Today however, I hope to guide you in an advanced research technique that will allow you to get away from that towering stack of records you have accumulated and hopefully apply some of your findings to an ancestor. Specifically speaking, I would love to help you use some of the records you have found to find the headstones of your family members!
The first step in order to kick off your road trip is to find any records that might help you find out where your ancestor is interred. Records you might want to gather from your library or online sources could include: death certificates, obituaries, funereal home records, newspapers, etc. As you sort through these records and gather information, paying close attention to how your ancestors name is written and recorded you will be able to more easily identify your ancestor’s gravestone when you go to look it up on headstone databases. A site that I would recommend to find your ancestor’s headstone would be www.findagrave.com.
A few other important points I would brush up on before you go out to visit your ancestor’s grave are one take a look into how to properly clean headstones and take some notes on headstone meanings and symbols. Doing both of these things can help prepare you for what you might find at the gravesite. Sometimes headstones are not legible enough to gather information from or you may encounter symbols you do not understand. If you take the time to understand and learn these skills and take notes it might save you a lot of time at the gravesite.
After you have been able to identify where your ancestor has been laid to rest you can begin to make your travel plans. Before you do make sure to take your phone and something to write down the information you will be able to gather off the headstone. Normally, when thinking about information that an ancestor’s headstone might divulge you would automatically assume name, birth, and, death dates. While this information is important some other things you should keep an eye out for include titles of relationships to a particular ancestor, military and religious associations, and maiden names. Also keep an eye out for what information you can learn from around your ancestor’s grave. Sometimes babies or other relatives you would not know to look for could be buried beside them. You might also want to check the infant sections of cemeteries.
Finding the grave of your ancestor can be a rewarding experience that can show you a physical manifestation of all your hard work as a genealogist! If you have thought about going out to an ancestor’s grave, but were not sure how to go about it I hope that this blog has helped you! If you have not, I encourage you to start taking the first few steps toward a new field trip! As always if you have any questions about today’s topic, past topics, or your current projects do not hesitate to reach out using the above contact information. Likely, many of your questions may be answered by watching my longer form webinar contact located under the webinar tab of this same website. Here’s to a new year of many wonderful genealogical discoveries!
Winona I Laird, “The Genealogy Granny”
