The Canadian Gravemarker Gallery Website. * Site address: http://www.gravemarkers.ca * Webmaster/Owner Address: pletsch@cogeco.ca ****************************************** [Thanks to the List Administrator for permission to send.] This free-access website has been in existence for ten years and its raison d'etre is to place photographs of grave markers online, so researchers can personally browse Canadian cemeteries, looking for their ancestors' burial plots. Visitors can browse the cemeteries, or they can use the onboard exclusive search engine. Detailed instruction on how to take full advantage of effective searches are posted by the search boxes. The webmaster and owner of the website is Murray Pletsch, a retired Canadian Forces Communications Officer. He founded the website after walking a cemetery looking for his ancestors' graves in Southern Ontario. As he photographed his ancestors' graves he began to think about some way he could display photographs for others to browse on the Internet. In 1999, the result of his deep thinking was a web site called the Northeastern Ontario Gravemarker Gallery...which evolved into the popular national website, called "The Canadian Gravemarker Gallery" in 2008. Over the years, the popular site has gained some very valuable hard working volunteers, who help process the thousands of photographs each month. In January 2010 the website has hosted a total of over 565,000 visits. The website is proud to announce that they have over 500 cemeteries online which amounts to over 350,000 photographed grave markers. The site welcomes over 200 visitors per day and averages over 10,000 searches per month. When one arrives at the site it is just a matter of selecting a "search engine button" or those wishing to browse, may select a "provincial button" which takes visitors to County/District pages, then on to Township or City/town pages. Because the site is still evolving, many areas and cemeteries have yet to be photographed. If you can't find a specific cemetery, then there is a clear possibility it has not yet been photographed. On an increasing basis, volunteers from across Canada photograph cemeteries and send the photographs to be processed to go online. Lately, several cemetery owners have specifically asked for their cemeteries to be photographed, which helps the photographers to schedule their workloads. The Canadian Gravemarker Gallery produces a monthly newsletter (free subscription available onsite) which lists the cemeteries placed online during the previous month. In addition, monthly announcements are despatched on many Canadian Mailing Lists. In summary, when one visits these cemeteries one can see the predominance of the local nationalities by the surnames. For instance, in some areas one can see the traces of Scottish, English, Irish, Finnish, French or German influences to name a few. These pioneers emigrated from the UK and Europe settling in Canada during the past 200 to 300 years. So if one is looking for missing ancestors who had settled in Canada, why not give the web site a good lookover.? It is recommended folks either subscribe to the onboard newsletter to be advised of cemeteries added monthly, or save the site as a "favourite" and re-visit at a later date. Best regards.....Murray Pletsch * Cdn Gravemarker Gallery - http://www.gravemarkers.ca * Ontario Historic Gallery - http://www.rootsweb.com/~cannor *