Jean, This discussion was a big topic yesterday amongst those of us who spend alot of time at the library of Michigan. What the state is asking to do is claim the UNUSED grave sites. For instance: Lets say that a family buys a plot of six graves - they use three and then things happen they move on to another state or location. Things happen. The state has been discussing this with some of the professional genies in the area asking how hard it would be to locate the descendants of these people, try to make contact and either make them aware of the sites being available or get permission to use the UNUSED grave sites for burials. Personally I don't think its offensive as long as they make an effort to: 1.) make absolutely sure the grave is unoccupied 2.) make every effort to contact descendants 3.) make ample compensation to families who choose not to use the remaining sites of their plots. Karen Check out some of our web pages: * http://www.wwnet.net/~krugman1 (Main home page) * http://www.miprofgenie.com * http://www.nebulacomputers.com (Our son's page!) * Are you a Boomershine descendant? Vol. 2 is now available! Email me for details! Karen Krugman, P.O. Box 577, Birmingham, MI 48012 -----Original Message----- From: JEAN PAYTON [mailto:jeanpayton@earthlink.net] Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2003 8:53 AM To: MIOAKLAN-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [MIOAKLAN] What Michigan Government wants to do with our historic Cemeteries Dear Readers: I was just reading the Detroit Newspapers edition of the Metro/State section and I am appalled by what the City of Lansing, MI is going to do and what the city of Jackson has already done. Headlines read: Lansing may reclaim thousands of grave sites because the cemeteries haven't seen burials since the late 1800s. They want to take the cemeteries back and resell them to new buyers. What is our world coming to that our government needs to uproot and disturb our ancestors final resting place because the Cities need money to run their Governments. Lets start a letter writing campaign to the Detroit News to put a stop to these robbing our ancestors graves to get money for their govermnet checkbook to misuse again. Each and everyone of us should flood the Detroit News with our complaints about what is about to happen to our historical cemeteries. To write to the Editor address is this www.detnews.com/editorial/index.htm A screen will come up and you only need to fill in the info required and write your letter and then click send. I believe the Detroit News will stand up and address this problem that we as genealogists are seeing more and more of this destruction our ancestrial artifiacts. Cemeteries should always be treated as sacred ground not a money making item for the Cities and or States of this Country because these cemeteries are our past and should be treated as such not to be destroyed and resell the property in which our ancestors are buried because these Cities and States Governments do not know how to spend our tax dollars wisely. So please write to the editor and lets get this desecration stopped before it goes any further. We are the only ones who can keep this from happening. Write today. Jean Payton ==== MIOAKLAN Mailing List ==== You can contact the listowner at Judy@BirdGenealogy.org ============================== To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237