u/JBupp

I walked a cemetery looking for requests and when I got home, added photos, and went to send a clarification message to one requestor, I found this on their bio page:

>Due to the increased amount of unpleasant, obnoxious & rude people I have decided it is time to close my account. I marked my profile to stop receiving messages but some have found a loophole & the nastiness continues.

I've never had an issue with this person. They were on FG for 16 years, 6 months. I can't ask what happened or offer support because my only contact method is through FG, now blocked.

I search for graves to fulfill request; I mow rows; and sometimes I do research.

In April 2025 I was researching a family and found the father was interred in a cemetery 25 miles away. He had a FG memorial so I created a request for a photo. It was a cemetery I had never been to, with mostly graves in the 1700 to mid-1800's, and very few requests. I didn't want to walk the entire cemetery for one photograph.

A year later, this cemetery has more requests and I have searched it several times. I even searched for the name I entered, although I had completely forgotten entering the request. Now some names have been requested that I am familiar with, so I take a short list and walk the cemetery.

I had absolutely no luck in finding any of the new names, but when leaving I walked past a stone with a certain name. An acquaintance on FG is researching all memorials with this surname and I try to help by finding any instances which don't have a memorial. I take a couple of quick photos in passing.

I get home and look up the name - there is a memorial for it, so my friend has already seen it: but no grave photo. I add the photo to the memorial and then check for other names. And on the bottom of the stone is a name with a request against it.

I open the memorial and find . . . I can't fulfill it; it's my request.

Another reminder that if you are looking for a name, you have to look everywhere.

I found the commonality between two different records for a single person.

I have a gravesite with Lucy Rice, Gregory, and Benjamin Warren. There are Familysearch records for all three people; Lucy's record has a DOB, no DOD.

Lucy's stone says she was married to Ezra Kimpton. There are Familysearch records for Ezra and Lucy Ann; Lucy Ann's record has a DOD which makes sense against the headstone I have and a DOB that seems reasonable with the Lucy Rice record.

So I would like to 'combine' Lucy Ann and Lucy Rice into one record, with my justification. How do I do this?

Found in Northborough, Massachusetts in the plot of the Warren family. DOD can't be earlier than 1840 or later than 1925

https://preview.redd.it/vbb95nbb96ih1.jpg?width=3781&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e36032ee4a904837f8acd9f6dd0a3757adae2d09

I'm sure cemetery personnel aren't known for their sense of humor (assigning grave locations), but last week I came across a hillside of Macs (McGowen, MacArthur, McGovern . . .) and today I snapped this photo

If you walk a cemetery and can't find the stone you are looking for . . . try, try again.

I've walked the Howard Street Cemetery 30 times or more; I've declared it completely photographed several time, only to be proved wrong; I'm back because someone created a number of memorials and requests for the Rice family. I don't expect to find them, because this cemetery is mostly photographed and any old stones that can be read have been photographed.

Before going I check FG for new memorials, and there is one for the Ford family that is missing a grave photograph. There's only a couple of Ford families in the cemetery, so I decide to park near one of their plots before walking to the Old Cemetery.

And, yes, there is the Ford memorial I'm looking for, once buried and now uncovered.

In the Old Cemetery, I don't find any of the Rice memorials. But I do see several stones I don't recognize and the sun is at the perfect place to illuminate a row of old stones to best effect, so I snap all of them.

I get home and go through the photos: the Ford photo; for the stone I didn't recognize, someone had photographed the front, but not the back, and I add three new memorials; in the row of stones, two were never photographed - new memorials - two had memorials but no photos, several had really bad photos or no close-ups and I added mine; and, I added GPS to a half dozen stones.

Walking a cemetery more than once, you get to know it. You recognize changes: new stones, cleaned stones, uncovered stones, and - sad to say - the stones yo overlooked before.

Just a rant.

I used Google maps to find and highlight cemeteries within a search area, then entered their names in FG for details. Within the last year Maps has been totally wonky finding cemeteries. Cemeteries that were once listed are no longer listed.

I run a search and one cemetery shows, marked with an icon, while a second cemetery, one mile away, is not highlighted.

This isn't a local issue, it happens in an area at least 30 miles in diameter.

I've found one issue where someone changed "Woodlawn Cemetery" to "Tree Department" because the public works use the cemetery chapel building as a staging area. Mapquest has even grabbed this: "Tree Department is not your average, small-town cemetery ..."

I've just sent Google a report:

I'm looking at this location: <>

Last year, there were three cemeteries listed and shown at this location: St Mary's, Immaculate Conception, and Brigham Cemetery. Today, none are shown, and a search within Maps fails to find these places.

I'm willing to add these places back, but if you now have a policy to remove cemeteries, my efforts would be futile. It strikes me as a bad decision to remove cemeteries, which are easier to find by name than to find by a street address.

We briefly had this discussion before. I just added an item:

A bungee cord.

I was photographing a stone, buried in a shrub and it ended up that I had to hold back the shrub on the right-side, hold back the shrub on the left-side, and trigger the camera, down the middle. With a bungee cord I could have secured the shrub on one side, held it on the other, and triggered the camera one-handed.

Feel free to contribute items.

We have a Lord & Burnham greenhouse and want to add an exhaust fan.

It's a simple job but we would like to find a company that is familiar with L&B greenhouses and can add any required reinforcements with the job.

The original installer is long gone; a place we used for repairs is long gone; we got one quote that said our job is too small; and we've been ghosted on a second quote.

I wish there was some social feature in FindAgrave, ideally involving cemeteries. It would be nice to know who is working a cemetery (if they wish to reveal the information) and to share information about the cemetery.

I've been trying to mow the rows at a cemetery. And I've discovered I'm not very good at it.

I did a cemetery with 26 sections; I skipped two sections, one because it was very, very old stones, and one because it was very, very new stones. I created several thousand new memorials - which I discovered are time consuming to type out and not my fave task.

So, hurrah, I have completed the cemetery.

Then I see a request for the cemetery. One of the very few requests that has included a plot number. And the plot number is in a section I mowed.

I go out to the plot and, yes, there is the stone. It looks like I missed this partial row in the section.

Then I find a memorial that was in a shrub, but now it is early winter and the shrub has died back.

I start double-checking my work. Here is another row I missed, on the edge of a section. Probably I stopped that day without finishing the section and didn't start the next time at the proper place. Here is a section I thought I did, but I must have walked it while I was searching for one, particular surname and forgot to mow the remainder. Here's a stone where I missed the backside.

And the cemetery's periodic cleanup has uncovered a number of flat stones that were not visible the first time I mowed the cemetery.

I've learned a number of lessons: always check all of the sides of a stone; find a good place to start and stop when you mow; make notes where you stop; possibly, record the impossible stone - surname only, illegible, to investigate at a later date.

A cemetery I walk is Very big, over 25,000 graves, over 75% photographed. It has a constant number of requests, usually for older stones.

It has one of the best online search engines I have seen. Yet some names pop up unmappable plot information on a search. Such as "Section A on Mountain Ave," when Mountain Avenue goes nowhere near section A.

This month the cemetery updated their search engine and I researched one of these names to find that the map references had changed and a big data block now included the owner as "City of Waltham." Still not on the map.

I was curious; I called the cemetery; and I got a knowledgeable person.

Section A has been used as a name many times over the years. Section A on Mountain Avenue has a single memorial stone and no grave markers and was associated with one or more city hospitals in the mid 1800's to early 1900's. Over time this was also known as section D and section L as border lines changed.

The section does not show on the cemetery map, other than as a blank. It includes ranges A through K, which likely explains why the adjacent section starts with section L.

So now there are 13 requests that can be mapped to this section, a photograph of the stone, and fulfilled. One request is 11 years old.

People with old, old requests, don't lose hope.

I manage a large number of memorials from mowing the rows at a couple of mid-sized cemeteries. I enjoy seeing corrections on these memorials.

It shows that people out there are actually interested in the work that's being done. And that probably adding memorials benefit others.

It helps correct my, oh so few, errors in typing or transcribing.

And it shares information about families, how these individuals are related. Which I enjoy going through as I approve the changes.

I've sent thanks to a few contributors who allow contacts, but here's to all of the contributors that I haven't taken the time to reply to.

I'm torn as to what to tell people - often hopeful people - when their request is in a paupers field.

A cemetery with many requests has three pauper fields: a moderate sized one, a very large one, and a small one.

The smallest field has 96 plots and 16 stones. I don't even have to visit the cemetery - if there is not a photo, today, there is not a stone to take a photo of.

Our American Blue Jays are getting as canny as our crow family.

We feed many birds and since neither jays or crows nest in the area they are reasonably neighborly with each other.

The crows ignore the jays and the jays mostly ignore the crows - the jays will sometimes bait the crows by landing on a crow-favorite perch or landing near a crow that is feeding. But the jay is so fast, they usually touch-down, grab a peanut, and are gone before the crow could possibly respond.

Driving home yesterday I saw a jay in the tree next to our driveway, on the street. While I was still 100 feet away the jay flew into my driveway. This is a behavior seen by our crows. They know our schedule and wait for us, then move to a good watching position.

When I turned into my drive the jay was on the drive, searching through peanut shells from earlier feedings, with an attitude that said he was aware he wouldn't find anything.

As I drive up, the jay flies into some pine trees and disappears. I throw out several peanuts and the pine trees rustle as an unseen jay moves into a better position.

They will seldom feed while we are outside. But as I went inside I could see the streak of blue.

Where is this stone? In 2016, when the photos were taken, it was obviously behind a large shrub. I am trying to find it in 2026 and there is no GPS and no hints in the photos as to where to start looking.

https://preview.redd.it/8ybk0misgm8h1.png?width=500&format=png&auto=webp&s=46d5d03f9c501b11329690d4796d2291f0211371

There's an app for that: MAPMYRUN tracks your phone GPS, maps your route, and saves to the Cloud. It isn't only for runs, it can be set for hikes, walks, or treadmills. The app will try to sell you upgrades, but the free-tier has more than enough features.

https://preview.redd.it/ddg8q55fjp7h1.png?width=613&format=png&auto=webp&s=e36eab06b79debc5c9ec86e9974a948449ac0596

(Not a drunkards-walk: I had 40 minutes I could spend at this cemetery and I was looking for one grave that was less than one year old - quickly checking all of the 'obvious' places.)

Polish cemeteries make me feel so stupid.

Not a Polish joke. My wife is half-Polish and years of practice allows me to pronounce words (including Her maiden name) without her family correcting me - or smiling at me.

But as a German-English WASP, I cannot scan Polish, or most Eastern European text and quickly recognize the word. And there are many, many alternate spellings to most Polish surnames.

So I have to spell out each name on the gravestones: Z-a-r-y-c-h-t-i-a ... No, looking for Z-a-r-y-c-h-t-a.

A group of ten-letter surnames will eat up a lot of time. I feel like I'm back in grade school.

And, I once walked past a grave on three visits, rejecting the stone, because the requestor misspelled the name - adding an extra 'i'. On the third trip I didn't notice the difference in spelling and found the stone made a good match when I got home.

Tell us about one of the cemeteries you visit: best, worst, most interesting, even 'the cemetery that I will never, ever visit.'

https://preview.redd.it/xk06xfsp024h1.png?width=643&format=png&auto=webp&s=53ae9330fcf32b0c1ddc34d240eb0ecaec612229

Have you ever seen this on a cemetery? Any idea if it might be at the request of the cemetery?