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| A resource for Gravestone Preservation |
Unfortunately, the news tells us the
tale of a person wanting to do good and instead doing incredible harm. This is a common tale. We are all ignorant of much! It’s important, especially when there is a
chance of harm, to do our homework, and then proceed with care and respect.
Michael J Leclerc’s
blog post Danger in the Graveyard talks about the original tragic
story involving a Tennessee
The Indiana
Department of Natural Resources has a useful Cemetery Preservation page with links to some helpful
resources. It starts out by saying “There
are no state laws that describe the techniques for preservation of cemeteries
and gravestones, but there are best practices and standards to meet to assure
that you are preserving the site in a way that will not eventually lead to
damage.” This is true for many states.
Another element of
this story is that this individual did NOT have the permission of the church to
which the cemetery belonged to with regards to taking photos. The Legal Genealogist (Judy G Russell) has a
great post Cemetery photos:
permission required? where she discusses this topic in
great depth. Also, do read all the
comments posted, there is a lot of neat dialog and information to be found. I found that NC has many statutes that
protect cemeteries as summarized on this North Carolina Office of State
Archaeology page The North Caroline
Cemetery Survey and Protective Legislation.
You might find similar statutes in your own state.
The perpetrators
intent was to upload the images to Find a Grave. Judy has another post Grave terms of use where she talks in detail about Find A Grave and BillionGraves, as two examples of crowdsourcing
for tombstones and other death information.
We cannot know it
all! There is no question about that! A
great benefit of the “web” is that we can educate ourselves before we take on
any project. Sometimes that education is that what we want to accomplish is
something we are NOT qualified to do or for which we don’t have the tools. Rather than put a tombstone, building,
landmark, etc., at risk – just STOP. As
we enjoy and cherish historical objects and sites, we want future generations
to be able to share in the same experience.
It’s not like you
would dive into doing electrical work without some training or under the
supervision of an experienced professional.
Why would you think you know how to properly handle a historic
tombstone?
Please do continue
to have a passion for documenting tombstones for posterity. We know that the elements and time will and
have already taken a toll and that our efforts will help future generations see
images and content from tombstones which may no longer exist. And, let’s try to not to hasten the
deterioration of these edifices honoring our ancestors in our enthusiasm. Let’s do our homework on what is the proper
and respectful care that the contents of cemeteries and graveyards deserve.
Editor’s Note: Upfront with NGS posts on related topics:
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