Susan I recently asked some findagrave volunteers to take some pictures at Mt. Tamalpais Cemetery in San Rafael. I did not know the plot number. When they arrived at the cemetery office they were told that only family members are authorized to have plot information despite the fact that anyone can walk around the cemetery. I followed up with the management of the cemetery and someone did get back to me and told me that the person on duty that day was mistaken and that anyone can have that information. He went on to say that they get hundreds of requests via the Internet to lookup information and with a staff of only four people (only one on at a time) it was impossible to honor those requests. However, people walking into the office at the beginning of the cemetery would receive the information so they can visit the grave. He was kind enough to send me the plot information as well as two pictures, but he said that they do have a policy of simply not responding to email lookup requests. They simply don't have the time. I suspect what you ran into at Lafayette is something similar and the management there is trying to see if there is enough business at that price point to hire another person just to do lookups. However, maybe they just want to discourage lookups all together, I just don't know. Have you just tried to show up at the office and ask for the plot number? It is a risk to take the time to drive there and then find that they won't give you that information just as it happened in my case. Paul On Fri, Apr 27, 2012 at 7:35 PM, Susan Stuart <[email protected]> wrote: > Does anybody have any experience getting plot information from Lafayette > Cemetery in Lafayette, Contra Costa County, CA? > > > > My husband and I are volunteers for Find A Grave and just got our first > photo request for that cemetery. He called them and they said they charge > $65.00 for plot look ups! We have taken photographs at many other > cemeteries and never run into this before. > > > > Thanks in advance. > > > > Susan > > > > ----------------------------------------- > NORCAL ARCHIVES: > http://archiver.rootsweb.com/ > Enter NORCAL. Browse by month. > Or click the "Search all archives" link to search by keyword. > ----------------------------------------- > To post a message to the NORCAL mailing list, send an email to > [email protected] > ------------------------------- > 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 >

Paul, Thanks for your story and thoughts. Mt. Tam Cemetery is very large (65 acres) and I was surprised to hear and read about their staff size. Lafayette Cemetery is a quite small public pioneer cemetery, and is run by the Alamo-Lafayette Cemetery District in conjunction with the Lafayette Historical Society. We initially called the cemetery office who gave us this silly $65/hour figure to research plot info, and have since emailed back and forth with the Historical Society, who assured us that somebody would get back to us, but no one has. Your suggestion to show up at the office is a good one and what we should have done in the first place! It's only a few minutes from home. Thanks. We'll probably do that tomorrow. I also take photos at a couple of other cemeteries in this area, and one is comparable to Mt. Tam (67 acres). They, too, have a small staff, but their records are on computer and they always respond to me fairly promptly with the plot info. Maybe Mt. Tam just hasn't caught up with the times! In any event, I'm glad you got your photos! Thanks again. Susan -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Paul Puente Sent: Sunday, April 29, 2012 4:52 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [NORCAL] Cemetery Plot Info Susan Have you just tried to show up at the office and ask for the plot number? It is a risk to take the time to drive there and then find that they won't give you that information just as it happened in my case. Paul