Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2007 8:23 AM >I agree, use these as a starting point. And if you find a grave that you > are interested in, you can search findagrave and see if the person is > listed > there. You can also list the find and do a photo request, can use the > information to contact the local historical/genealogical society and/or > the > cemetery itself and query them to see if they have the same information > and > if so what the documentation for it is. You can search online newspapers > to > see if there is corroborating evidence listed there. > > I wonder if the person that posted the warning has family information > passed > down to him/her that may/may not be correct and since what he/she found > doesn't match what he/she has his/her personal research is threatened. All good points. I have been doing cemeteries around Johnstown in both Cambria & Somerset Counties. I have photographed each tombstone and then linked the picture to the webpage to eliminate errors in transcribing as much as possible. Of course, the tombstone itself could have incorrect information. I have found the WPA records to be rather bad when compared to the photographs. Wrongs dates, names, etc, but it doesn't approach 70% (maybe 20-30%). More recent transcriptions, done by people who know the names on the stones, such as those at Treasures, are fairly good, and I have not yet found any significant errors. In an example of an incorrect inference, on Sunday we found a friend's grave at St Joseph's in Johnstown. The front of the stone has a man and women, same last name, side by side. The recent transcription, available on the county webpage, has them as husband and wife, but we know from personal knowledge that they were brother and sister. That one happens occasionly. Doug has been working on McDowell Cemetery. I assume he has photos, I know he has been trying to identify everyone buried there, as he has contacted me about a couple of them. So it does appear that he is being very diligent to be accurate. Brian Cartwright Johnstown