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Wanted to pitch this idea out.. I go around to various cemeteries in the Greenville/Laurens areas and take photos for people who want them.. I'm guessing most everyone is at least marginally familiar with the findagrave.com website.. Very handy for tracking your family tree.
I've done a poorly documented cemetery down in Laurens, should finish up the Laurens City Cemetery next weekend.. Working on Cannon in Fountain Inn an hour or two at night after work, before it gets dark.
The next project that I want to do is Greenville Memorial Gardens down off 25.. That's a.. Problem cemetery. Management won't help people locate gravesites.. There's lots of people buried there that are not documented on the Findagrave site.. and.. It's big. Over 10k interments and 25 outstanding photo requests on it.
It's taken me 4 weeks (Weekends.. And it's been hot, so, 3 to 6 hours a day, Sat and Sun only) to document Laurens City Cemetery, and it only has about 3000 people in it. While Greenville Memorial Gardens is much larger, it should be simpler because you don't have various types and conditions of stones (All are flat bronze markers, with a handful of exceptions).. So.. Seeing if anyone here would want to help out with documenting it.
Basically, all you'd need would be an iPhone or Android phone with the Findagrave app.. Free time.. Good feet.. And a good data plan, as uploading photos can be data intensive.
Basically, what I do, is stop at each marker, pull it up on findagrave.. If it doesn't exist, search by the DOB and DOD and verify that it isn't in there under another name or misspelled.. If not, add it.. Take a photo if there's not one.. If there is.. Check whether it has GPS coordinates, and if not.. Hit the button to find your current GPS coordinates and add them to the memorial. Double check spellings, names and DOB/DOD.
If anyone is interested.. Let me know.. We don't have to be there at the same times or anything.. Just want to coordinate so that we don't wind up stepping on each other so far as what sections need to be done. I'm thinking i'll probably get started on it sometime around mid to late September as once I finish Laurens City, i'll have to finish Cannon on the weekends, because I only have about an hour of daylight now once I'm done at work.
Labonte,
I just wanted to say thank you for doing that.
It is a thankless job, difficult at times, and if I could help, I certainly would.
I see that info on Ancestry all the time, and I truly appreciate what you are doing.
I live no where near Greenville, but I hope you get some volunteer help with the good
cause you are continuing.
If I had a car, I would help.
Thank you again.
The next project that I want to do is Greenville Memorial Gardens down off 25.. That's a.. Problem cemetery. Management won't help people locate gravesites.. There's lots of people buried there that are not documented on the Findagrave site.. and.. It's big. Over 10k interments and 25 outstanding photo requests on it.
Good luck. Several people have been run out of Greenville Memorial Gardens by the staff when mowing the rows for photos. I don't know if it was a particular staff member on a power trip or if it's their official policy, but there have been several attempts at more organized efforts for that cemetery from those of us who are on Find A Grave in the past.
If you DO manage to get an overwhelming number of photos at any cemetery, there are always those of us who are willing to do photo editing/posting as needed. I worked with a great contributor who was overwhelmed by the number of photos she got at Forest Lawn in Anderson so after I finished the section I photographed there, she sent me several hundred photos on Dropbox and I edited/uploaded them to the appropriate memorials. With several of us helping, we managed to get the cemetery "done" fairly quickly.
Good luck. Several people have been run out of Greenville Memorial Gardens by the staff when mowing the rows for photos. I don't know if it was a particular staff member on a power trip or if it's their official policy, but there have been several attempts at more organized efforts for that cemetery from those of us who are on Find A Grave in the past.
If you DO manage to get an overwhelming number of photos at any cemetery, there are always those of us who are willing to do photo editing/posting as needed. I worked with a great contributor who was overwhelmed by the number of photos she got at Forest Lawn in Anderson so after I finished the section I photographed there, she sent me several hundred photos on Dropbox and I edited/uploaded them to the appropriate memorials. With several of us helping, we managed to get the cemetery "done" fairly quickly.
Yeah.. I'm aware of the management there. I do actually have a few relatives buried out there, so.. Legit reason for being there. Plus.. That's one of the reasons that I generally do things on evenings and weekends.
Cannon.. has actually been wonderful. One of the guys there even went out and took a photo of an exceptionally difficult to find memorial.
But, that's one of the reasons I want to GPS tag GMG.. Because they won't help anyone locate a gravesite, not even relatives.. I've actually helped several people locate graves while I was searching for some myself.
Labonte18, have you thought about posting a message on the FB page they seem to have to ask some of those who have family members buried there for some help? Just an idea.
Wish I could help. New to a smart phone that seems to be outsmarting me in learning it, and on a limited data plan. But I do appreciate you and all of those who take the time to volunteer to do missions like this. I try to help people find missing family or in search of their genealogy and utilize Ancestry and Findagrave a lot. Thanks for all you do, have done, and will continue trying to do!!!
The cemetery page? Yeah.. as has been mentioned here.. They're.. For lack of a better term.. Complete bastards. So.. I certainly don't want to advertise to them that i'll be doing it.
Once I'm done.. I may post something on there that alerts people that graves have been GPS tagged and they can try it out.. And that's a fine idea that I hadn't thought of, so glad you mentioned it.
I just don't understand their attitude towards it. I can't see someone documenting a cemetery being rude or disrespectful. If I'm documenting and there's a funeral happening.. I leave. Unless it's a very large cemetery like GMG, in which case I can work in an area far away from it. I certainly don't physically touch any of the graves or anything on/around them. I sat at a grave for 5 minutes on Saturday in Laurens City Cemetery waiting for the wind to die down so that a flag would stop covering the face of the stone to get a pic. I also don't go near an area where someone is stopping to pay their respects to their loved one and interrupt or bother them.
Plus.. You know, there's people who want to see the grave of a loved one that will never be able to get to the grave location. That's what got me into doing the volunteer work.. My grandmother passed away in 2008 and I was able to get a volunteer in Manila to take a picture at the American cemetery of her brothers' grave. Noone in her family had ever seen it. He died in a Japanese POW camp in WWII and they weren't able to afford having his body shipped back (That's my understanding of it, at least)
Their less-than-helpful attitude of helping people find graves when they're there I totally don't understand.
It's interesting doing it.. You see some sad things, some strange things and some really wonderful things. The sad.. There's a cemetery in Laurens that i'd say over 30% of the burials there just have the temporary funeral home markers on them. The wonderful... There was one I came across in Cannon a week or so ago where they had spelled out "We Love You" at the foot of the grave in white stones.. And the strange.. I've seen this a couple of times.. Someone used the metal mailbox letters to put the DOD on a marker.
I also ran into markers where you'd have 3 members of the same family, all died on the same day.
It makes me wonder when place doesn't want to help retain the history of the cemetery what else may be going on there, and what they may be wanting to hide. These days, I don't put anything past anyone.
My Mother had a sister pass before she was even born, back before 1937 in Rochester, NY. I found out where she was buried, but even the cemetery doesn't know exactly where the grave marker is. I wish someone would be able to do what you are doing and find it.
I hope you get the help you need. I'm sure others will be able to help. If I can do something on the computer end of it, please P/M me.
They were all killed in a car crash. IIRC it was on Dials Church Rd. One girl survived, but her name escapes me at the moment. Shes still alive AFAIK, and was in a wheelchair the last time I saw her. She was at GCO the same time I was, but a year or 2 behind me.
Last edited by UpstateJohn; 08-29-2016 at 12:54 PM..
Reason: Added info and fixed grammar.
They were all killed in a car crash. IIRC it was on Dials Church Rd. One girl survived, but her name escapes me at the moment. Shes still alive AFAIK, and was in a wheelchair the last time I saw her. She was at GCO the same time I was, but a year or 2 behind me.
I figured it was something like that.. At least since it was in the early 80's.. Car crash.. House fire.. Something along those lines. Apparently the mother/grandmother passed away last year.
Of course, had it happened in the late 90's to current day.. Then the whole murder/suicide thing comes into thought..
I actually documented the entire Owings Presbyterian a few weeks ago.. Small cemetery, so it was fairly easy to do.. Stuck with one grave that I couldn't locate, and am pretty sure the person isn't actually buried there.. But I can't find ANY information on that person whatsoever.
and, of course.. Someone else has been buried there since I did it. John William "Johnny" Harrison ( - 2016) - Find A Grave Memorial so.. I may stop by there in the next few weeks to catch that one.. Give enough time for the stone to be put in place, or updated.
UpstateJohn, we've talked in PMs about locating some of the ones around Gray Court.. It's a problem wtih the south.. There's just so many 'family' cemeteries that are in some strange spot, or in someone's backyard. Mostly unkempt with stones that have severely degraded.
There's some in spots that you'd never know there was one there.. In fact, there's one in Abbeville that I know of that isn't even documented on FindaGrave.. Going to contact someone there who does photos that might be willing to head out in the woods and try to find it.
I just checked on Findagrave for one of the family members and didn't see anything listed under that name for the year in Cherokee County, SC.
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