Hi Andi, Please send to me info about the legislation regarding protecting old/abandoned cems. Sincerely, Janet Andrea D. MacDonald wrote: > Hello all, > > As many of you know, the Snohomish Cemetery trial sparked an interest for me in Washington > state's old or abandoned cemeteries quite a while back. It affected me so much so that I > gathered support from some concerned citizens and formed the Kitsap County Cemetery > Association to care for old or abandoned cemeteries in Kitsap County. That group grew to > become the Washington State Cemetery Association which has made remarkable strides over > the last year. We want to protect these old cemeteries as they are a vast resource for > genealogists and they are disappearing at an alarming rate. > > Our main goal was to introduce new legislation which would protect these old cemeteries. > Over the last year, I and several others have worked hard at understanding cemetery laws > and watched the Snohomish Cemetery trial to learn all we could. We also started putting > together a listing of cemeteries in Washington state (it can be found at the web site > below) as we felt that those who do transcriptions might like to know all of the > cemeteries available to transcribe. We found that there are as many forgotten cemeteries > as there are active cemeteries. > > A week ago on my bi-weekly trip to Olympia, I stopped in my legislator's office to ask a > few questions about legislation and after speaking with her aid, was hustled into a > meeting just today which went very well. In the meeting was an aid who will actually > write the legislation and he said it would be done tomorrow. The calendar for this bill > is very quick. Everything must be done by March 6. THAT INCLUDES THE PUBLIC HEARING. > And this is where all of you come in. > > I'm getting the word out now that sometime in February there will be a public hearing in > Olympia on the new legislation. This bill will need people to call in to their local > legislators to voice their support, and especially it will need people to come to the > hearing to show their support. The more people there, the better it will go. > > If you would like specific information on the bill, please send me an email with your name > and email address and a note that you would like the information, and as it comes in, I'll > forward it to each of you. > > Anyone wishing to forward this message to another list, or to other individuals, please > feel free to do so. I am contacting senior citizens groups and historical socieities as > well as genealogical societies. > > -------------- > Andrea D. MacDonald "Andi" > andimac@oz.net > > Washington State Cemetery Association > http://www.rootsweb.com/~wapsgs/