This is a somewhat related continuant of the private cemetery comment. Last summer, my dad & I took a genealogy trip back to Madison Co, Illinois (across the Mississippi River from St. Louis) and into the bootheel of SE Missouri (Bollinger, Stoddard, and Cape Girardeau counties, mostly). Let me tell you, there are LOTS of cemeteries, many of them private down there. We had to travel through a cow pasture to access one small, old plot. The cows had been in it and had knocked down several old stones. Story was that a son bought the property and decided to let the cows roam. When his mother found out what was going on, she pitched a hissy fit and sonny fenced the cemetery again. I hate to think what will happen once the mom dies and the her wishes have no defenders. But to give an idea of sheer numbers... An acquaintence of my dad's passed on while we were down there and we decided we'd go to the services. Now you need to know that my dad is very hearing impaired, even with hearing aids, so it comes as no surprise that he hadn't clearly heard the name of the cemetery, but he knew the day & time. He even knew the name of the road out of Puxico. I figured we were home free; we'd just leave a little early and we'd have time to find the cemetery. We found out that the road was only 10 miles long-- that's an important bit of info. Two hours late and three cemeteries later, we still hadn't found THE cemetery. That night, we called the friend; she told us the name of the cemetery, and we the next day we found it-- through no help from the Missouri road markers [but that's another rant]. But the friend also said that there was yet another cemetery (that we had not found) on that same road. So on a 10 mile road, there were AT LEAST five cemeteries!!! And that doesn't even touch the probability that there might be other, smaller ones in the area. I was astounded! Dad & I had a good laugh over that experience. Back on topic, though, we didn't have any trouble with private cem's. Cemeteries are regarded differently down there than up here. People seem to be EXPECTED to visit; graves are always decorated, even when there has been no holiday recently. Another thing is that most markers are the above-ground, genealogists' friends-- you know the kind: you can read 3 rows of stones from one position. Out here in western Washington, most cemeteries have required flush-mount stones from years due to maintenance concerns. BTW, although I was looking primarily for Stepp, Walker, Lloyd, and Fowler graves, I took digital pics of Armstrong graves even though I hadn't a clue whether they were 'mine'- so if anyone thinks they have a relative in that area, let me know and I'll see if I've got their grave. Jill in Washington state