1. Why do you take photos of cemeteries?
2. Where do you find the information?
3. What area do you spend the most time in?
4. Why are there cemeteries from random counties all over the place?
5. Can you do look-ups for me?
6. You went to the cemetery my relative is in, but didn't photograph their grave-why not?
7. Nobody seems to know where my relative is-where can they be?
8. The photo of my relatives grave is really small, can I get a larger copy?
9. Can I get a real copy mailed to me?
10. Do you accept someone else's photos and information?
11. There is a cemetery near my house-can you tell me about it or come see it?
12. When do you do most of your searching?
13. What equipment do you use?
14. Who are you anyhow?
15. Can I e-mail you a question?

My interest first began from the love of history. When I finally hooked up to the internet, and began working on my own genealogy, the interest grew from there. Of all information you can find concerning genealogy, I believe that finding their final resting place is the most important because that is where they truly are now. Houses are destroyed, land is sold, but a grave should be their home forever.

I also hope I can help anyone out there looking for the graves of their ancestors. I have spent countless hours and put thousands of miles on my car; dirt roads, hikes in the woods, the middle of fields or the middle of subdvisions; had lots of help and have been told to leave immediately; fought chiggers, ticks, snakes; startled by rabbits, squirrels, and dogs; the heat of summer and snow in winter. But knowing I am helping preserve the past, and maybe help someone solve a mystery, then it is all worthwhile.

From many places. I use the reference books from my local library. Map software. And a multitude of genealogy and map related websites. A list of links and a bibliography are at the bottom of this page.

My home is in Rutherford County, Tennessee, so this is where I have concentrated my research. I live the northwest part of the county, which is also near Davidson and Williamson Counties, so I also spend some time looking in those areas as well. I have also spend a bit more time in other surrounding counties, Wilson, Bedford, and Cannon.

Concerning Middle Tennessee, my family enjoys road trips, and if we see a cemetery whlie driving around, sometimes we stop to photograph it. Sometimes our daytrips are centered around traveling to a certain cemetery. I also spent quite alot of time visiting family in Virginia, so I recorded many of the cemeteries there. I have also gone to Pennsylvania and Maryland to look for the graves of my ancestors. Anytime I photograph a cemetery, I record the names in a book, and work on a page for the website for them.

I have the cemetery books for Rutherford and Sevier Counties, Tennessee. My local library has the cemetery books for Williamson, Trousdale, Bedford, Blount, and a few other local counties. I can look up names if you have enough information. A full name, including maiden if female, birth and death years, and last known location. Please be prepared to be dissapointed, as so many of the ones I look for are not found.

Some of the cemeteries I visit are quite large. I would love to be able to photograph every single tombstone I come across, but time and technology do not often permit that. As for technology, I currently use a digital camera with two memory disks, so I can hold up to about 360 total photos at a time. If the cemetery is smaller than about 20 or 30 graves, then I usually try to photograph every tombstone. If there are more, I tend to only photograph the oldest, most interesting tombstones, and all Veterans I come across. I also generally do not photograph the more recent graves in the larger cemeteries, unless the artwork on it is beautiful. I do this because these are generally not the people that others out there are looking for. If "Uncle Joe" died ten years ago, most likely you know where he is. IF you know your ancestor is in a nearby cemetery, and I did not photograph their grave, I would be more than happy to return to do that for you. If the cemetery is in an area I do not frequent, it could be some time before I could get there.

Unfortunately, this is all too common. If the grave is older than, say, 1850, there is a good chance that the grave was unmarked, was marked only by a fieldstone(very common in Middle Tennessee), or something happened to the tombstone over the years. Many of the earliest settlers lie in unmarked graves in completely unknown locations. I have also come across many "cairns" (rock piles), and most of them were and are not marked. Homemade markers or poorly made markers can weather easily, losing the information. Small graveyards could be hidden on farms or in woods, unknown to any who currently lives in the area. It is also possible that someone moved just prior to their last known location. They could have died while visiting another state. Their body could have been returned to a previous homesite to be buried. There are numerous reasons as to why an ancestors grave cannot be found. Please prepare to be dissappointed if you are searching for an ancestors grave. Some requests I have gotten seem to not want to take "no I cannot find them" for an answer. I am truly sorry if I cannot find your relative. But please be prepared for that if you ask.

Absolutely. Many of my early photos were taken in a smaller format, so the largest they will be is 640x480. Most of the ones taken in the past year are 1280x960. Just e-mail with your specific request.

Well, I have had my digital camera for two and a half years now, and I have yet to make any hard copies of my photos, other than what I have printed off my computer in 8x10 format. That's not to say I could not do this. I would have to take the photo, burn it to a CD and take it to a photo developer. I would only ask enough compensation to cover the cost of the photo and mailer and postage. I could give you a quote beforehand, and if you agree, I would appreciate the payment prior to shipment. I don't mean to be rude, but I've been burned on e-bay a few times, and it's difficult to trust anyone online these days.

Absolutely. I'd prefer it be from any cemeteries in the general areas that I already cover, so as to help build a central database for anyone out there searching. If you are looking to work on your own area, there are several wonderful free websites out there, namely Rootsweb, that would be a great place for your information.

Well, it depends on where it is! If you live in the area around Rutherford County, I would love to come visit at some point. As for simple information, see the "look-ups" question above to see what I may be able to help on.

I personally prefer to do most of my cemetery hunting in the fall and winter. Especially after the leaves have fallen, and the tempature has gone down, and there are no more snakes and bugs to worry about. Many of the "hidden" graveyards show themselves when the weeds die back. I also prefer to spend most of the hot summer days inside working on the website! Chiggers and no-see-ums can get really annoying while trying to photograph. Plus in fall/winter, I am usually wearing clothes that have more pockets to carry the esentials around with me. And there is nothing more beautiful than graveyards photographed with the fall colors around, or covered in snow.

I use a Fuji Finepix 2650 2.0 megapixel digital camera. I have two 64mb memory disks, each holding around 185 photos at the 1M size. I almost always carry a notebook and pen to write down anything that may be hard to see on the photo. I have a bag in my trunk with a mirror and rubbing material, but I rarely use these. I also have a Tennessee counties map that shows cemetery locations, it never leaves the car. I often also bring other maps or books with more information that I may need.

My name is Kim. I am in my 30's, married with a young daughter who I also drag around to most of my searches. I live in Smyrna, Tennessee, although I was raised in Houson, Texas, and only moved to the Nashville area in late 1996. Most of my own personal research is of my mother's and my father's mother's families. My parents both came from California. My mother's lines have moved to a different state nearly every generation, so my searching is quite spread out, from Colorado to Missouri to Kentucky to Maryland to Pennsylvania. My father's mother's family was in Texas, before that Missouri, and before that East Tennessee. For more info about who I am researching click here.

Sure. Please be patient with me though. There are times when I don't log on for several days. I may be on a daytrip, or perhaps even ill. (I also have formed a bad addiction to the video game World of Warcraft!) I may also be trying to gather some information before I respond. It is also possible that the e-mail never even got through. If the subject line is not specific about a certain cemetery, person or area, it is possible it could be deleted in the spam collector before I even get to it. I am posting my email address, but it is not linked-that is to keep spammers away. There is also a section that says "REMOVE", that you must remove from the address, another way to keep spammers away. kimdenny12@REMOVEyahoo.com