As a genealogy researcher, I spend a lot of time in cemeteries.  I expect you do, too.  Now it’s confession time….. Early in my genealogy research days, I would aimlessly wander about a cemetery looking for my ancestor.  Once I found the gravestone, I took a photograph of the front and then I  left.   Doing cemetery research this way, I missed so much important genealogical information! [Maybe the title of this post should be “Don’t Research Like I Did!”] Fast forward to present day, and I come away from cemetery research with a lot of information on my ancestors. I created this guide to cemetery research to show you how…

Finding an ancestor’s death date is usually high on a genealogy researcher’s wish list.  Often that death date can be difficult to track down – especially as we go further back in history. Why do genealogy researchers have trouble finding an ancestor’s death date? Well, several reasons….. Researchers may be searching for a death record that does not exist. Formal death certificates are fairly “modern” records, so searching for a death certificate for an ancestor who died in 1860 is a wasted search. Researchers may not understand the county/state boundaries or geographical region where an ancestor lived. If an ancestor lived close to a state or county dividing line, he/she…