I'm a volunteer for a very, very old pioneer cemetery in Southern California (the oldest protestant cemetery in SoCal) and we've recently completed the daunting task of photographing every visible headstone and monument in the cemetery (approx. 3,900 burials, many with no headstone, though) and posting them at FAG in a complete listing of our known burials which had been uploaded to FAG earlier. (Nel, I believe I sent you the Hatcher burial data in this cemetery some years ago.) I use the words "visible" and "known burials" because in our efforts to preserve this historic site, we have come across evidence of conflicting data. For instance, we have a headstone (pink marble, very nice) for a married couple plainly visible in the cemetery. It has their names engraved on it and their dates of birth (note: birth only, no death dates for either). In researching this, we have found that this couple sold their plots back to the cemetery, both have died, and both appear to be buried in another cemetery in another state! We also have published obituaries stating that burial took place in our little cemetery and the cemetery has no record of it. We are also discovering stones that have sunken and gotten buried (two from 1880!!). I've also spoken with family members who had a death certificate stating their relative is buried there and the cemetery has no record of it. A journal was found by a researcher which had been written by a woman who had been pregnant when a man entered her and her husband's store and, in the process of robbing the store, he fired his gun wounding the pregnant woman. She survived, but unfortunately, her baby did not. She tells how the family went to the cemetery (on their own), dug a grave and buried the baby, and that was it. The cemetery has no record of this burial either, which if I recall correctly was in about 1874-75). And then there are cases where people have posted a burial at FAG in our cemetery and we have proven that the person is actually buried at another local cemetery. One gentleman contacted us and requested the burial location of two family members. We had no record of either, but he was able to describe to me where, in the cemetery, he recalled the burials were located (having visited the graves many years ago). With that description, I was able to hone in on two graves that according to records contained burials, but it was unknown who was buried there. In other words, there are any number of circumstances that can cause conflicting data. This being a very, very old cemetery, we sort of expect these conflicts and roll with them as best we can. Many of our "residents" have no headstones or markers. That doesn't mean they aren't buried there and we would never make that assumption. We have many instances where a stone, especially for a couple, was made and placed when one of them died. The date of death is clearly engraved for one but not the other. Just because that one date of death is missing, doesn't necessarily mean that that person is still living. In fact, in many instances that person has died and is, in fact, buried there, but nobody in the family (if there was family to see to it) took the time or effort to see that the date of death was engraved on the stone. Didn't mean to get so lengthy. There are just so many possibilities in researching our families. You must take what you find (especially user submitted data such as is on FAG) and verify it yourself. We place flags on our veterans' graves at appropriate times and several of them do not have headstones. We know they are there, though, and still place a flag. Heather In a message dated 10/23/2009 7:27:06 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: HATCHER website: http://hatcherfamilyassn.com HALL DNA project: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~nhatcher/hall/HDNAtest.htm "One of the tragedies of life is the murder of a beautiful theory by a brutal gang of facts" - La Rochefoucauld Winnette, You're not stepping on anyone's toes. What we have here are viewpoints from different ends of the spectrum and different goals. The problem is that while "you" may know exactly where a family member is buried, the researcher who is looking for hard evidence cannot be sure in the absense of hard evidence. When a researcher sees unsourced data on a site such as WC and sees dozens of copycats with the same data, it's not possible to know where the data came from or who first put it out there. It is, as Tim stated, nothing more than hearsay. It may be right or wrong but is useless to the serious researcher looking for proof. It's nothing more than a "maybe", a clue to follow. The same is true of fag. There is no way [at the present] to determine if Winnette is correct but Jane Doe is not correct in their individual submissions. I see this as a difficult problem for fag to solve. Having an unknown cemetery section may be fine but it seems the purpose of fag is to link individuals to specific cemeteries. The problem is more with those who claim a burial in a certain cemetery that cannot be proven. But since text entries can be made, such as obits, why couldn't that area be used to explain the exact circumstances of an unmarked or unprovable burial? When someone with family history explains that family history, it becomes more valuable to the researcher. The copycatters entering garbage they found on someone else's file could not adequately give that kind of personal explanation and their data would then become much more suspect to the researcher. Just a thought.......... And just some thoughts on the GA DCs you're working with. You may have already discovered this but I've found potential problems with DCs from all states when burial location is given as, for example, "Thomasville, GA." Further searching finds that there are x number of cems in Thomasville, including a city cemetery. Don't assume burial was in the city cem. I've also found burials listed as XYZ cem only to find out later, complete with tombstone pic, that the burial was actually in ABC cem. The informant may have given a best guess on where the deceased would be buried only to have the family bury him/her elsewhere. Ain't nothin' certain in this world 'cept death and taxes. Nel ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

HATCHER website: http://hatcherfamilyassn.com HALL DNA project: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~nhatcher/hall/HDNAtest.htm "One of the tragedies of life is the murder of a beautiful theory by a brutal gang of facts" - La Rochefoucauld Heather, A most excellent write-up on what is likely very common in many older cemeteries. But you've sent me so much stuff over the years and you didn't mention the name of your cem. So I can't confirm if you sent it to me or not :-( Nel