I found the attached on my recent edition of RootsWeb Review, and I thought it it might be of interest to several of you. Following that is a smile for today from the same source. CEMETERY AND MORTUARY RECORDS (Part 1 of 2) by Brian Mavrogeorge, Senior Development Manager The Learning Company <bmavrogeorge@palladium.net> Americans rely heavily on the censuses for family group information. But when searching for children or women who lived prior to 1900 in the United States, these records are not reliable. Infant mortality was high, and children who were born and died between census enumerations don't appear on the census. If you are looking for a woman in the U.S. who died before the 1850 federal census enumeration, the only information you'll find under her own name might be on her tombstone or in a cemetery card file. Tombstone inscriptions, cemetery records, or undertaker records might be the only tangible evidence of these lives. The Family Tutor for Basic Genealogy Records <http://www.uftree.com>, by Johni Cerny, offers this advice. Start your cemetery search by finding the names and addresses of churches in areas where your ancestor may have died. The National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution has a Web site for locating cemeteries: <http://www.sar.org/geneal/cemtmaps.htm>. Churches with affiliated burial grounds usually kept records of interments in their ecclesiastical registers (sometimes called "Sexton's Books"). The local minister might be able to tell you where these registers are now -- in the original meetinghouse, a central church archive, in the possession of the heirs of the then-presiding minister, or at the office of the current minister. Also, thousands of church burial registers have been microfilmed and can be found in genealogical collections, or at the LDS Family History Library and Family History Centers. * * * * * HUMOR. Thanks to Sharon Chappius for sending this tale. THE WEDDING A little boy was in a relative's wedding. As he was coming down the aisle he would take two steps, stop, and turn to the crowd, alternating between bride's side and groom's side. While facing the crowd, he would put his hands up like claws and roar . .. so it went, step, step, ROAR, step, step, ROAR, all the way down the aisle. As you can imagine, the crowd was near tears from laughing by the time he reached the altar. The little boy, however, became distressed at all the laughing and began to cry. When asked what was the matter, the child sniffed, "I was just being the Ring Bear." **** Keep on smiling, and happy hunting! Dick Marston, Rockingham County, NH, Mail List (NHROCKIN) Owner