Wandering Through Old Cemeteries, If I Wasnt Doing Research I Would Probably Get Shot.

January 28, 2011
By C. Hogan

Since I work from home I don’t get the opportunity to get out and about as much as I would like to,  but I love wandering through old cemeteries taking photographs of headstones for people that may be searching for family, and also for the excitement when you find a really OLD stone that you can read that maybe no one knows about.

Even though most cemeteries are public, not all are and I want to make sure I am respectful in doing my research.  old cemetery

This past weekend I received a request from someone to photograph a family stone in Green Cemetery about 20 miles from where I live.  Since I had never been to this particular cemetery, I decided to take my son along to drive.. I get lost easily and even Google Maps didn’t have this particular cemetery on the map.

I have to admit, it was an exciting search but just a tad spooky to find this cemetery out in the middle of nowhere.  Off in the distance was a lone house.. the dogs barking furiously I’m sure because they sensed strangers a bit to close by.  I expected to have someone drive up asking what we were doing there and hoping they would believe me, but that never happened.

I found some wonderful old stones, some too hard to read and realized I had come a bit unprepared with no brush to softly brush away debris.  My hands hurt by the time we left using them as my only means to clear the stones.  Along the way we came across a second old cemetery (while stopped to make sure we weren’t lost),  named Cosby Cemetery and I took a few shots of the stones there.  I have decided that I am going to create pages with all these photographs and you can find them in the menu above.

As I travel I hope to add more cemetery photo pages.  This weekend I have two more photo requests and I am really looking forward to the search for these out of the way cemeteries and finding links for people searching for lost relatives.

If you have any photographs you would like to share you can either post them on FindAGrave.com or send them to me and I will happily post them on this site for others to benefit from.

Happy Trails.

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2 Responses to Wandering Through Old Cemeteries, If I Wasnt Doing Research I Would Probably Get Shot.

  1. Mr I.Bingham on June 21, 2011 at 2:53 pm

    Recently I saw in the newspaper a name for people who love visiting Cemeteries, but cannot remember what it was, now would you happen to know what the word is? it was something like ‘toxopholite’ I can find no reference in dictionaries, would be interested to find out as i am also one of those people

    • C. Hogan on June 21, 2011 at 3:00 pm

      taphophilia
      1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries.
      2. A love or fondness for funerals.
      3. A love of funerals, graves, and cemeteries.
      4. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries.
      taphophiliac
      1. Anyone who likes to visit cemeteries to see the various tombstones, etc.
      2. In psychiatry, someone who has a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries.

      Taken from: http://wordinfo.info/unit/2085/ip:1/il:T

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