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From: "Melinde Sanborn" <>
Subject: [APG] FindAGrave
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2007 08:26:04 -0400


Richard, thank you for pointing out this use of FindAGrave Three of us here
in New Hampshire are waiting for a sunny day to tape a TV show about
photographing gravestones (we should live so long). Even the images of
gravestones online can be extremely misleading. A beautiful site online for
a Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, cemetery, has photos of some stones (many done
in a distinctive style with cherubs and designs). In one case the
transcription read 1767 where it should have been 1757 (probate). I wrote to
the volunteer siteowner and he sent back a photograph that truly looked like
1767. I dragged the man of my dreams out on Easter morning in 20 degree
weather and just beat the clouds to the cemetery. We used a 6-foot mirror to
photograph the stone properly (it takes two people). The correctly lit image
proved 1757. Stones the siteowner thought were illegible yielded up their
secrets to the reflected sunlight - if I could only have stopped shivering
long enough to shoot them all! Well, there's always the next time the sun
comes out.

Melinde


Richard wrote: "I have learned, however, that on-line cemetery listings are
about as accurate as, say, census indexes."


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