Hi Barilynn, Your experience must have been traumatic, to say the least. Thanks for telling about it. I hadn't ever really thought about practices outside of the US, so I find this discussion quite interesting and informative. By doing our family genealogy, I've now found that one deceased member was transported from the west coast to the east coast of the US hidden in a boxcar of grain on a train. ick! And my own grandfather was transported from one state to another with the cooperation of a private pilot. My uncle was obliged to hold his dead father in his lap in a two-seater....flying over the Rocky Mountains. Of course, this wasn't really "legal" so all was done under the cover of night. What a trip that had to be! But, my grandfather was buried in our local cemetery 40 years ago and there is no doubt he'll be there in another 40 years, if the world is still in one piece. Marjorie ---------- From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: [SWITZ] Re: SWITZERLAND-D Digest V02 #219 Date: Thursday, September 19, 2002 9:10 AM Well, as long as we are talking about this subject, I will give you my experience. My mother and I were in Switzerland on vacation visiting relative and she had the misfortune of dying there. First of all, they consider her age of 76 being old. Wow!!!!!!!! Their embalming consists of something they call a spritz. By the time the body gets in the hands of a mortician it is too late to embalm. Because we are from the US the body is put in a steel vault and shipped to our country. Hand welded I might add. It is expensive for the family. Looking back I would have had her cremated. Embalming is only done at the medical school on Bern so transportion is a problem. In the town where my family lives the length of time in a cemetery is 40 years. It is a real problem for genealogists. No walks through the cemetery for the stones of family members. Hope this did not gross out anyone. If it did I apologize. Thank for listening Barilynn ==== SWITZERLAND Mailing List ==== Going on vacation? Gone longer than 4 days? Go to http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/intl/CHE/SWITZERLAND.html to unsubscribe nothing in message

One year I visited my mothers family in Arkansas where they hold an annual family reunion. It is held at the beautiful family cemetery with a little church on the site. During the reunion they have a "decoration", where everyone decorates all of the graves and takes pictures of the headstones or makes pencil etchings of them. Everyone shares stories of our dead relatives and new members of the family are made record of in the "tree". It is an unusual custom but I found that it was a treasure for the genealogists in the family. Fortunately, there is more than enough land to go around in Arkansas which gave us the opportunity to learn about our ancestors who were early settlers in the territory and to learn about their immigration patterns.