Great suggestions. Thanks Is there a good source to have an old tombstone re-engraved? -----Original Message----- From: Dennis Muncrief [mailto:mudman@cableone.net] Sent: Sunday, August 25, 2002 10:58 PM To: OK-CEMETERIES-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [OK-CEM] cleaning tombstones Suzie, You asked a lot of questions so this reply will be a long one. I don't own a GPS but wish I did. I think they are great. I've never heard of Buffalo Head but there are a lot of places I have never heard of. I just recently found Toad Suck, C.N., I.T. The Folsoms are a very famous family in the Choctaws so you will run across the name often. I am not familiar with Ft. Towson but I am very familiar with Ft. Washita. I have been there many time and done much research on the post. I have just completed a book on the history of Ft. Arbuckle and there is a central theme on the cemeteries of these old post. In each of them there are 3 burial grounds. Since these post were U.S. garrisons there is a cemetery for Federal troops, one for the civilians and another for the Confederate troops that died during the occupation of 1861 - 1865. The cemetery at Ft. Arbuckle has never been located. The cemetery at Ft. Washita is clearly marked and the confederate cemetery is about a 1/4 mile west of the other burial grounds. This may be the same at Ft. Towson. As I said before, I would never clean a tombstone for any reason except to register or photograph it. I have used chalk on two occasions to photograph a stone. Use only white chalk. The others contain permanent color pigment. But, before you use the chalk, run your finger around the carvings and try to 'read' them with your finger. You will be surprised how many times this works. People were usually buried in family plots. When you find a stone you cannot read, look at the stones on the left and right of the stone. Very often you can get clues to the surname from those stones. Another thing that will help you read the carvings is to go to the old cemeteries in the afternoon. The Christian beliefs of most of the settlers caused them to be buried facing the East. The carvings will be on the West side of the stone. In the afternoon, the Sun will be at your back and the face of the stone will be in full sunlight. But people were buried in every direction way-back-when so this doesn't work everytime. A point of safety is to take a cell phone when you go to an old cemetery. A woman should NEVER go to an out-of-the-way or remote cemetery without a partner. I never took a cell phone with me, I carried a .38 Smith & Wesson. No kidding! I have run into some really weird dudes out in the boonies doing cemeteries. They remind me of the cast from "Deliverance". Go to the cemeteries that are overgrown in the winter time. This part of the country is loaded with rattlesnakes, copperheads, ticks and chiggers. Take some water and a sandwich with you and a good shade hat in the summer. A relatively inexpensive digital camera is a must and be sure to carry an extra memory disk. My camera will take 96 good photos on one disk and I carry two disks. That is more photos than I want to take anyway. When I was registering the cemeteries, I carried a 5-gallon bucket with my "possibles". I carried a small mirror that I could reflect light back across the surface of the stone and read the carvings. This worked quite well. Another reason to carry the bucket is that it gives you a place to sit when your legs get tired. You sure don't want to sit on those old stones. They will topple over and break your leg and then you will be in a fine mess. Talcum powder sprinkled on the carvings works as the powder stays in the carvings. The lichens and moss were removed with a plastic ice scraper when they were very heavy on a stone. I also had a gallon milk jug with water and would just wash the stone with a sponge to remove loose debris. I used the water and a wallpaper brush with short-natural bristles to clean the stone. NEVER use a brush with metal bristles on an old stone. I guarantee you it will destroy the carvings. Wash the chalk with the water. Water wont hurt the stone as it has been rained on a million times already. I also carried 6 large nails and a roll of yellow masons twine so I could lay out a section in the old cemeteries. Push the nails into the ground with about an inch sticking up above the ground, take the twine and string it around the nail heads to make an area where you want to register the graves. This is important in very OLD cemeteries as the people were buried in any direction. There were no neat rows or sections as you see in modern cemeteries. After you record the graves inside the yellow string boundary, move the string and nails to a new section and begin the next section. Until I started doing this I missed a lot of graves or recorded the same grave two or three times. This saved me many return trips to the cemeteries for corrections. I have done cemeteries that consisted of one stone all the way up to 8,000 graves. Also remember that the modern cemeteries have sextons and they will give you a map of the cemetery. You can work these with the map. Remember, never pour ANY liquid on an old tombstone except water. You don't know what is in it. I have taken dozens of photos of old stones for people across the country and have NEVER had to do any more to get a good photo than that described above. I have taken literally thousands of photos of tombstones for different websites and have never had to do more than that listed above. This is what I have learned about reading & registering cemeteries over the years. Hope it will help you. Good Luck, Dennis Host - Murray County, OK http://www.rootsweb.com/~okmurray/ ----- Original Message ----- From: <Jleflore65@aol.com> To: <OK-CEMETERIES-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, August 25, 2002 8:37 PM Subject: Re: [OK-CEM] cleaning tombstones > Dennis, how wonderful that you have registered over 30,000 names and 40 > cemeteries. Thank you for the information on cleaning off the graves that > you're going to photograph. What do you think about using washable chalk on > the gravestones in order to photograph them? I am just getting started in > finding old graves and photographing them. I am related to Greenwood > LeFlore, a Choctaw Indian Chief in Mississippi and the Mannings/Harris > families from the Caddo/Boggy Depot area. I went to Greenwood, MS and > photographed the grave stones in the cemetery at Malmaison, which was > Greenwood LeFlore's mansion, which burned down in 1943. Have you ever come > across any of these names? I've also photographed their grave stones in > Caddo and Forbis LeFlore's stone in Boggy Depot, but I can't find Forbis > LeFlore's wife, Rebecca Fisher. I think she may have died in Buffalo Head, > OK, which no longer exists. I found on the USGS site a map showing where it > used to be. Have you ever heard of it? > > I'm sorry to bombard you with questions, but you are the first person I've > talked to who does this. Do you know if there are 2 cemeteries at Fort > Towson? I went to the Fort (park area) and the man in the visitors center > there told me the old cemetery was at the north end of the current cemetery > there which was a few miles west and north of the fort. I went there and it > does look like the north end of the cemetery is older. However, I read > somewhere that there is a row of Confederate soldiers in the old Fort Towson > cemetery and I did not find them. I found another map that shows 2 > completely different cemeteries at Fort Towson, one of which is labeled "old > cemetery" and appears to be almost next to the old fort. Do you know > anything about them? > > One last question and I will stop bothering you. I purchased a GPS handheld > unit and am trying to figure out if I can enter coordinates for an old town > or cemetery into the thing and then have it show me when I am at that > location. Do you use one? > > Thank you for answering Kay's message and any help you can give me or any > suggestions, would really be appreciated. I'm getting hooked on what I call > "tombstone hopping and photographing". > > Suzie Harris > > > > ==== OK-CEMETERIES Mailing List ==== > NOTICE: Posting of virus warnings, test messages, chain letters, political > announcements, current events, items for sale, personal messages, flames, > etc. (in other words - spam) is NOT ALLOWED and will be grounds for removal. > Consideration for exceptions, contact Kathleen Burnett kathleenburnett@earthlink.net > Oklahoma Cemeteries Volunteer Website http://www.rootsweb.com/~okcemete/okcem.htm > > ============================== > 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 > ==== OK-CEMETERIES Mailing List ==== If you wish to subscribe to or unsubscribe from the Oklahoma Cemetery list, use OK-CEMETERIES-l-request@rootsweb.com or OK-CEMETERIES-d-request@rootsweb.com if you are on the Digest list. If your Ancestors migrated to or through Oklahoma - register them on the Oklahoma Migration Page http://oklahomamigration.homestead.com/OMIndex.html Oklahoma Cemeteries Volunteer Website http://www.rootsweb.com/~okcemete/okcem.htm ============================== 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

Don't even think about it!!! Remember that these old stones were cut fresh from the earth and were still soft for hand carving that was done a hundred thirty years ago. They are now dried out and very brittle. You might as well take a sledge hammer to it for all the good you would do. If you just have to put up a new stone - do it. Put up a new stone - and leave the old one alone. You are inviting disaster. Dennis ----- Original Message ----- From: "Davis, Terry D." <TDDavis@MarathonOil.com> To: <OK-CEMETERIES-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, August 26, 2002 10:52 AM Subject: RE: [OK-CEM] cleaning tombstones > Great suggestions. Thanks Is there a good source to have an old tombstone re-engraved? > > -----Original Message----- > From: Dennis Muncrief [mailto:mudman@cableone.net] > Sent: Sunday, August 25, 2002 10:58 PM > To: OK-CEMETERIES-L@rootsweb.com > Subject: Re: [OK-CEM] cleaning tombstones > > > Suzie, > You asked a lot of questions so this reply will be a long one. > > I don't own a GPS but wish I did. I think they are great. > > I've never heard of Buffalo Head but there are a lot of places I have never > heard of. I just recently found Toad Suck, C.N., I.T. > > The Folsoms are a very famous family in the Choctaws so you will run across > the name often. > > I am not familiar with Ft. Towson but I am very familiar with Ft. Washita. > I have been there many time and done much research on the post. I have just > completed a book on the history of Ft. Arbuckle and there is a central theme > on the cemeteries of these old post. > > In each of them there are 3 burial grounds. Since these post were U.S. > garrisons there is a cemetery for Federal troops, one for the civilians and > another for the Confederate troops that died during the occupation of 1861 - > 1865. > > The cemetery at Ft. Arbuckle has never been located. The cemetery at Ft. > Washita is clearly marked and the confederate cemetery is about a 1/4 mile > west of the other burial grounds. This may be the same at Ft. Towson. > > As I said before, I would never clean a tombstone for any reason except to > register or photograph it. I have used chalk on two occasions to photograph > a stone. Use only white chalk. The others contain permanent color pigment. > But, before you use the chalk, run your finger around the carvings and try > to 'read' them with your finger. You will be surprised how many times this > works. > > People were usually buried in family plots. When you find a stone you > cannot read, look at the stones on the left and right of the stone. Very > often you can get clues to the surname from those stones. > > Another thing that will help you read the carvings is to go to the old > cemeteries in the afternoon. The Christian beliefs of most of the settlers > caused them to be buried facing the East. The carvings will be on the West > side of the stone. In the afternoon, the Sun will be at your back and the > face of the stone will be in full sunlight. But people were buried in every > direction way-back-when so this doesn't work everytime. > > A point of safety is to take a cell phone when you go to an old cemetery. A > woman should NEVER go to an out-of-the-way or remote cemetery without a > partner. I never took a cell phone with me, I carried a .38 Smith & Wesson. > No kidding! I have run into some really weird dudes out in the boonies > doing cemeteries. They remind me of the cast from "Deliverance". > > Go to the cemeteries that are overgrown in the winter time. This part of > the country is loaded with rattlesnakes, copperheads, ticks and chiggers. > Take some water and a sandwich with you and a good shade hat in the summer. > > A relatively inexpensive digital camera is a must and be sure to carry an > extra memory disk. My camera will take 96 good photos on one disk and I > carry two disks. That is more photos than I want to take anyway. > > When I was registering the cemeteries, I carried a 5-gallon bucket with my > "possibles". I carried a small mirror that I could reflect light back > across the surface of the stone and read the carvings. This worked quite > well. Another reason to carry the bucket is that it gives you a place to > sit when your legs get tired. You sure don't want to sit on those old > stones. They will topple over and break your leg and then you will be in a > fine mess. > > Talcum powder sprinkled on the carvings works as the powder stays in the > carvings. The lichens and moss were removed with a plastic ice scraper when > they were very heavy on a stone. > > I also had a gallon milk jug with water and would just wash the stone with a > sponge to remove loose debris. I used the water and a wallpaper brush with > short-natural bristles to clean the stone. NEVER use a brush with metal > bristles on an old stone. I guarantee you it will destroy the carvings. > Wash the chalk with the water. Water wont hurt the stone as it has been > rained on a million times already. > > I also carried 6 large nails and a roll of yellow masons twine so I could > lay out a section in the old cemeteries. Push the nails into the ground > with about an inch sticking up above the ground, take the twine and string > it around the nail heads to make an area where you want to register the > graves. This is important in very OLD cemeteries as the people were buried > in any direction. There were no neat rows or sections as you see in modern > cemeteries. > > After you record the graves inside the yellow string boundary, move the > string and nails to a new section and begin the next section. Until I > started doing this I missed a lot of graves or recorded the same grave two > or three times. This saved me many return trips to the cemeteries for > corrections. I have done cemeteries that consisted of one stone all the way > up to 8,000 graves. Also remember that the modern cemeteries have sextons > and they will give you a map of the cemetery. You can work these with the > map. > > Remember, never pour ANY liquid on an old tombstone except water. You don't > know what is in it. I have taken dozens of photos of old stones for people > across the country and have NEVER had to do any more to get a good photo > than that described above. I have taken literally thousands of photos of > tombstones for different websites and have never had to do more than that > listed above. > > This is what I have learned about reading & registering cemeteries over the > years. Hope it will help you. > > Good Luck, > Dennis > Host - Murray County, OK > http://www.rootsweb.com/~okmurray/ > > > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: <Jleflore65@aol.com> > To: <OK-CEMETERIES-L@rootsweb.com> > Sent: Sunday, August 25, 2002 8:37 PM > Subject: Re: [OK-CEM] cleaning tombstones > > > > Dennis, how wonderful that you have registered over 30,000 names and 40 > > cemeteries. Thank you for the information on cleaning off the graves that > > you're going to photograph. What do you think about using washable chalk > on > > the gravestones in order to photograph them? I am just getting started in > > finding old graves and photographing them. I am related to Greenwood > > LeFlore, a Choctaw Indian Chief in Mississippi and the Mannings/Harris > > families from the Caddo/Boggy Depot area. I went to Greenwood, MS and > > photographed the grave stones in the cemetery at Malmaison, which was > > Greenwood LeFlore's mansion, which burned down in 1943. Have you ever come > > across any of these names? I've also photographed their grave stones in > > Caddo and Forbis LeFlore's stone in Boggy Depot, but I can't find Forbis > > LeFlore's wife, Rebecca Fisher. I think she may have died in Buffalo > Head, > > OK, which no longer exists. I found on the USGS site a map showing where > it > > used to be. Have you ever heard of it? > > > > I'm sorry to bombard you with questions, but you are the first person I've > > talked to who does this. Do you know if there are 2 cemeteries at Fort > > Towson? I went to the Fort (park area) and the man in the visitors center > > there told me the old cemetery was at the north end of the current > cemetery > > there which was a few miles west and north of the fort. I went there and > it > > does look like the north end of the cemetery is older. However, I read > > somewhere that there is a row of Confederate soldiers in the old Fort > Towson > > cemetery and I did not find them. I found another map that shows 2 > > completely different cemeteries at Fort Towson, one of which is labeled > "old > > cemetery" and appears to be almost next to the old fort. Do you know > > anything about them? > > > > One last question and I will stop bothering you. I purchased a GPS > handheld > > unit and am trying to figure out if I can enter coordinates for an old > town > > or cemetery into the thing and then have it show me when I am at that > > location. Do you use one? > > > > Thank you for answering Kay's message and any help you can give me or any > > suggestions, would really be appreciated. I'm getting hooked on what I > call > > "tombstone hopping and photographing". > > > > Suzie Harris > > > > > > > > ==== OK-CEMETERIES Mailing List ==== > > NOTICE: Posting of virus warnings, test messages, chain letters, > political > > announcements, current events, items for sale, personal messages, flames, > > etc. (in other words - spam) is NOT ALLOWED and will be grounds for > removal. > > Consideration for exceptions, contact Kathleen Burnett > kathleenburnett@earthlink.net > > Oklahoma Cemeteries Volunteer Website > http://www.rootsweb.com/~okcemete/okcem.htm > > > > ============================== > > 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 > > > > > > ==== OK-CEMETERIES Mailing List ==== > If you wish to subscribe to or unsubscribe from the Oklahoma Cemetery list , use > OK-CEMETERIES-l-request@rootsweb.com or OK-CEMETERIES-d-request@rootsweb.com if > you are on the Digest list. > If your Ancestors migrated to or through Oklahoma - register them on the Oklahoma > Migration Page http://oklahomamigration.homestead.com/OMIndex.html > Oklahoma Cemeteries Volunteer Website http://www.rootsweb.com/~okcemete/okcem.htm > > ============================== > 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 > > > > ==== OK-CEMETERIES Mailing List ==== > NOTICE: Posting of virus warnings, test messages, chain letters, political > announcements, current events, items for sale, personal messages, flames, > etc. (in other words - spam) is NOT ALLOWED and will be grounds for removal. > Consideration for exceptions, contact Kathleen Burnett kathleenburnett@earthlink.net > Oklahoma Cemeteries Volunteer Website http://www.rootsweb.com/~okcemete/okcem.htm > > ============================== > 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 > >