Dear Jim, I have been very busy with the arrangements for the funeral of a 5th cousin of mine, John Garner, so I haven't been doing a lot of genealogy this week. Basically, you want to take several photographs of each gravestone in light that will show the lettering on the gravestone clearly. Then you want to draw what is on the tombstone as close to its original markings and letter placement as possible even if you reduce the drawing in size on your note paper. This is called transcription. Even symbols on a gravestone are clues to organizations to which your ancestor belonged. When you go to a city cemetery, there is usually an office, which often opens fairly early in the morning. You want to go to the office and ask for grave plot registrations by the name of the person who are being researched. Some places have each individual on file cards, which are stored alphabetically by surname. Other places have whole families on a single page. Other places have a "Keeper's book or Keeper's Index" so that the staff can find each grave. Often the cemetery office staff will give you a copy either free or at cost of this document, which will either list the individual, or all of the persons buried in the same plot. It will give the date of death and the date of burial. You may be referred to another location to have copies made of the grave registration forms as the office at the cemetery may not have a copier available. This happened to me at Oak Hill Cemetery in Neenah, WI. We had to go to City Hall to get our copies made. You can describe the gravestone as Brown stone which is chipped, pink stone, pink granite, marble, white stone with bronze plaque, etc. You can often ask one of the cemetery workers what kind of stone was used to make the gravestone. The photograph will also help to identify the stone later. What is important is to be able to find the stone again. If the cemetery is large enough to have "named streets," then record the names of the street on each side of the section in which your family is buried. If the cemetery is small, count rows of gravestones from the entrance gate. In a large cemetery, you may also want to record the proximity of your family's plot to some big or unusual gravestone nearby, so that you can find it more quickly. For instance, my great grandfather George Washington Fay 6 and family are buried near a "cement tree" and there is a large group monument shaped like a sarcophagus in the center of the plot with the word "FAY" on it. The "Cement Tree" was a standard gravestone for one of the lodges or fraternal organizations. Other landmarks might be statues, mausoleums (small house like buildings), large or unusual trees, or obelisks. The purpose of noting an unusual gravestone nearby is to be able to relocate the grave more quickly the next time you visit, or someone else from your family visits the cemetery. The office staff may have a hand-out map of the cemetery and may be able to show you on the map where your family is buried. We were given a nice maps with all of the trees identified when we went to Bluff City Cemetery in Elgin, IL. Good luck with your trip and I hope that you will find some good information for us. Sincerely, Mary (FAY) Nelson 9