Reflections of a GraveFinder -- They Were The Dash.

 

It is no secret that I love volunteering for BillionGraves.  I love that with so little effort and just a donation of my time, I can provide a resource for thousands of people searching for a record for their ancestor or loved one.  Pure and simple.  It’s me, my iPhone and a cemetery.   Step.  Point.  Click.  Move to the next headstone.  Step.  Point. Click.  And yet, it is not as simple as that.  There is the dash.

What do I mean by “the dash?”  I am sure by now you have heard it said that we all have two dates and a dash, and we better make that dash count.  What about those dashes I pass moment by moment as I individually photograph each grave?  Those dashes meant something to a lot of people.  What happened in those dashes affected the lives of others and should be remembered.

Over the past years I have photographed over 150 thousand headstones.  That is a lot of memorials.  Do I stop and think of each person as I move along?  Truthfully, no.  I sometimes zone out because the repetition of the process over a two to five hour timeframe can lead to one’s mind wandering.  But I do try to focus.  To me, it’s a matter of respect.

Each headstone has a name.  Sometimes, as I pass by, I state the name aloud and say hello.  I notice the religious symbol on the stone.  I read the epitaph. Sometimes there is a spouse buried there, as well.  Two feet to the left may be an infant child.  My heart melts and I get emotional as though suddenly this is my family and I am sharing in the loss.

There are the feelings of pride, too.  I have photographed in Arlington, Quantico and Gettysburg.  I have passed soldiers of all ranks and station.  Purple Heart recipients.  Some who died in war and others who lived very long lives.  In my heart, I thank them all for their service.  I say a silent prayer.

I see mementoes on or beside the headstones.  A case of beer and a pack of cigarettes.  Teddy bears.  Matchbox cars.  A rock.  A dime.  Sometimes even a black box, holding who knows what?  I don’t look inside.  It’s sacred.  All memories relating to the dash.

And sometimes I meet the families.  Typically, when I photograph a cemetery and mourners come to pay their respects, I will stop photographing.  I move away or go somewhere else in the cemetery so as to give the visitors privacy.  Sometimes I am so focused I don’t see the family members walk towards me, curious as to what I am doing here.  Did I lose a loved one, as well?  Did I know their father?  Mother?  Friend?  No.  I am here for record preservation purposes only.  After a brief explanation of why I am in the cemetery, the real interaction begins.  The family members want to share their experiences about their loved ones.  They want the stories told.  I’m here to preserve the dates.  They are here to remember the dash.

What I do is easy.  It’s just me, the iPhone and a cemetery.  Step. Point. Click.  Move to the next headstone.  But as volunteers for any genealogical project, may we pause to remember for whom we are doing this work?  What we do goes beyond record preservation.  May our work reflect our respect for the name engraved on the stone.  They are more than just a name and two dates.  They were the dash.

Gettysburg Retreat

This past weekend was the first chance I've had this year to get away.  I say "get away," but to be honest it was an excuse to get out and do what I enjoy most -- immerse myself in history and graveyards.   It was a gorgeous weekend with low humidity and a lot of sunshine, and so I headed off to Gettysburg where I could escape into the past and reconnect with my ancestors.

My roots are planted deep in Civil War history. I personally live just off a well known battlefield in Virginia, but it goes much deeper than that.  My ancestors fought for both the North and the South in what my mother called the "War of Northern Aggression," and my dad referred to as the "Great Rebellion."  Dinner conversation during my childhood was interesting to say the least.

There was a time when I was deep into the research of my ancestors' experiences in the Civil War.  My dad's Grandfather (yes, we have very long generations on his side of the family), fought with Company M, Massachusetts, 4th Calvary Regiment.  My mother's 2nd Great Grandfather fought with Company G, North Carolina 38th Infantry Regiment.  Obviously they both survived, because I am here to write about it, but in doing their research I came to learn of the hardships they personally endured.  One grandfather, in particular, never recovered from his wounds of war and was unable to work.  The affects of the war on his body extended to the hardship on his family who struggled to break free from government assistance for another generation.

It can be overwhelming touring a place with such a great history.  Absorbing the information can be compared to drinking from a firehose -- definitely information overload.  I chose to do a self guided tour of the battlefield. Gettysburg has been greatly preserved and I have to say, the audio tour was of great benefit to me.  Since I knew the Regiments of a few of my ancestors, I was able to follow the detailed map to the areas in which their troops would have set up camp, as well where they marched directly into battle.

Walking where they marched and trying to envision what they experienced was quite a sacred experience for me.  Here we were as visitors, enjoying a gorgeous weekend, embracing the beauty of the landscape, escaping our crazy busy lives at the very location our ancestors came to lay down theirs for our freedom.  It was humbling to say the least.

The battlefield today is peaceful and beautiful, and people come from around the world to study and remember the events that took place there.  But just off the battlefield is another location that I took the time visit: the cemetery.  Like the battlefield, it too has been maintained and tourists walked the pathways and talked in hush voices. 

 I spend a good deal of my free time photographing cemeteries for record preservation. While there are thousands of headstones in the Gettysburg National Cemetery, none of them, to my knowledge, are my forefathers (and not all are of Civil War era). They are somebody's ancestors though, so I took some time to digitize as many headstones as I could before having to leave for the day.  Later, as I began transcribing the information from these graves, it touched me to see that matches were being made with entries in FamilySearch.  It is my hope that the images I took this weekend make it to those individuals who have been searching and searching for their ancestor's information.

It was a wonderful retreat.  I could easily have spent a week in Gettysburg and still not done all the things I would have like to have done.  If you get a chance to visit any location of your ancestors, I suggest you take with you notes about their lives and time spent there.  It really makes the visit meaningful and brings it to a very personal level.

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