Who knows. The small effort helps show that Americans are still the most giving people on Earth

Alisande, I did that for quite a while. I always had a HUGE list of cemetaries waiting for me. I did our whole county and it got to be waaay more work than I wanted.

Plus, during that time I backed into a mailbox turning my full-sized truck around one day. Another day I backed over a tired mounted in concrete in a church parking lot. Put two quite decent/indecent dents in my truck! LOL

Finally decided that it was something that I didn't want to do anymore. The gas cost was getting prohibitive, too.

THat all being said, I DID enjoy doing it! LOL

"The small effort helps show that Americans are still the most giving people on Earth"

It's nice that some people like to help others by taking photos of graves for what's ultimately a commercial internet site, but I think it's more than a stretch to suggest that the effort is anything notable on a world scale.

You might not be surprised to hear that at least among the places I've been to in my travels for work and play, the view you express is not shared by our "friends" in most other countries.

I've been doing this for six years, but for me it's seasonal (impossible for me to do it in the cold) and sporadic. Not a hardship so far. I've uploaded over 2,200 photos and have created almost 1,500 memorials. A lot of people have expressed their gratitude, and that feels good, but I also enjoy the process. I love photography, some of the gravestones are interesting, and cemeteries are peaceful places.

This is the first time I noticed that memorials were being added so rapidly, but that doesn't mean it hasn't always been this way. I really don't know.

I wish I could show some of the gravestones to people in the anti-vaccine movement. Like this example:

What a tragic story for that family. I hope you don't happen upon sights (and sites) like that too often.

I see them a lot. Sometimes diphtheria or some other disease will come through a community, and multiple children from a family will die within a few days. It never fails to move me. Some of the volunteers don't bother creating memorials for the children because they have no direct descendants. But I add memorials for each and every one, linking them to their parents.

We discussed historical childhood mortality at the KT some time ago. I couldn't imagine how parents managed to both get through such tragedy and, before that, steel themselves against the knowledge of what might very well happen. Someone here shared the information that very often parents didn't name their children for the first couple of years. It was their attempt to distance themselves until there was a good chance the child would survive. But I'm sure the mothers nursed the babies, so I don't know....

I once read a piece of advice given to one of the young women who traveled across the country in a covered wagon. Her mother told her if she wanted four children, she should give birth to eight.

Grandparents had 13 children. Guess I'll never find out who the first 3 were, or what happened.

My dad was born before 1920 and was the youngest of three kids. In the 10 years after he was born, he lost both of his siblings to diseases that are today preventable. His mother was so crazed with grief and worry that she didn't let my dad go anywhere but school for a year--not fun for him and yeah, that doesn't make a lot of sense. We don't know of anyone in his branch of the family, now that the two cousins and the single child of one of them have passed.

I meant to add, that I think it's a very nice thing that you do, Susan. And it was great that you were able to take so many shots when you were able too, Ya Ya.

Thank you for doing this. I'm sure you see many sad tombstones. My husband has been doing genealogy for a long time and has many people unaccounted for. But still he continues to search for that one person he is looking for and trying to solve the mysteries in his family. I often wonder if he will ever be finished.
Mary

Thanks, Sjerin. Your dad's story reminds me of my Uncle Eddie, whose mother kept him in the house as much as possible and didn't allow him to play with other children, for fear he'd contract polio. Of course he did. Amazingly, he grew up to be very sociable and great fun. Also super handsome, and between that and his sense of humor, you never noticed the withered leg.

Mary, I suspect no one's genealogy research is ever really finished. :-) But today, more and more information is being shared on the Internet, making it easier for everyone building their family tree. My mother-in-law had a book someone wrote about their family, going back to the 1600s. I don't know how they did it without the Internet!

I recently found my Aunt's Bible in some of my mama's things.
My aunt was the first born-(1908) my mom was the last-(1927). Imagine my surprise to learn there were two other children in between! I had never known this and I don't know where they are buried either.

I always thought there were six siblings. There was a daughter born in 1910 and died 1912. And a son born and died-1912. My aunt noted in her Bible that he only lived a few hours.

I'm wanting to find out if anyone has made a memorial for my aunt at Find A Grave. She lived most of her life in California and was buried there.

Charlee, have you checked for your aunt's memorial? It's easy enough to do.

Here's the FindAGrave search page

Thanks for the link, Susan. I need a little more info to put in but I have that at the office.

I'll let you know what I find out.

Btw, I checked F-A=G several years ago and couldn't find hers listed.

Charlee, If you can find the name of the cemetery you should make the memorial yourself and then request a photo. And on that search page, just put her last name and the state. You will get a huge list of names but they will be alphabetical.