Visiting cemeteries

I have visited two cemeteries this week, one yesterday and one today. And I dragged/bribed my children to come along. They really didn't help a ton but it was nice to have someone there. And they did look for names! My daughter didn't want to look by herself so the two of them looked together.

Yesterday we went to the Beaverdam Cemetery. It was so HOT. I started taking pictures of every stone but that didn't last long with the heat. It doesn't seem like it would be a big deal to just take pictures but yes, it was! I did find most of the graves I wanted and the ones I didn't find might not even have stones. That is part of the organization problem. I probably have a listing from the cemetery records at the library, but not on my computer. Nor linked to my cemetery file. I have visited this cemetery before but it was before I had a digital camera so it was nice to have digital copies to add to my computer records.

I actually have two sets of direct ancestors at this cemetery. The de Vries pair do not have a stone. The only stone from that family is for the daughter who died in 1881. As you can tell from the picture above, the stone is very worn and difficult to read. The girl was named Jantje and she died when she was 20 years old. I haven't looked up a death record for her yet so I am not sure the cause of her death. Her younger brother died about the same age but I don't even have exact dates for him. The two surviving brothers are the ancestors that connect my parents trees.

The other couple are Jan & Jantje Beld. Their stone is also in bad shape but someone had added plaques since the last time I had been out there, about 10 years ago.

Today we went to the Benthiem Cemetery. This was my very first visit there. My direct ancestor, Reijer Sneller, is buried there but doesn't not have a stone. So there wasn't any big discoveries. All the pictures I took were for distant relatives or just very old stones. It was a very nice cemetery but was being mowed so there was a lot of grass clippings to move aside.

I also spent a lot of time adding the pictures and records to Find A Grave. This website is a collection of cemetery records and photos added by anyone who has an interest. It is a great site!

I am trying to decide if I should visit another cemetery tomorrow to make it three in a row or to swing by the library and make some copies from the cemetery records.