To those who have mailed me already - yes, I did forget to mention that I do love working gravestones, they tell me so much about the people who went before. I've been in graveyards in Kildare where I saw graves of people I knew when a small child - and had little chats with them same for my grandparents. I've stood in front of my great Grandparents grave in Donegal and thought - wow this must be something like all those people who come to Ireland searching for their ancestors feel like....amazed that I felt that way. I've sat on Dursey island down off the cork coast looking at the graves there and wondering at the fact that the mounds had not sunk in all that time, and the fact that while what I looked at were grave markers - not stones - the people had put a marker at the top and bottom of the grave - showing the size - so that even if the mound had sunk - you'd see the chidren in a row immediately - all beside one another. I think about the people as I work usually - their lives what they did, how they lived. I see them in the literature - newspaper accounts of something during the 1800's and then I find them dead....I find them in the Tithes in all sorts of things...Not all of them - but some of them. I meet a farmer taking a break from ploughing or whatever and he'll tell me all about his family whose tomb I am sitting on, the ones who'll tell me the various local 'beliefs' about the land in front of that chapel - the bones found in the field next door, the man who was buried in the corner next to the pub because he spent his life in the pub and used to joke about how the publican could empty the guiness slops onto his grave every night so he woulnd't be without his pint. I've had it said to me that I'm crazy (considering my 'chats' I may well be <g>) - that leave the dead be - what's the point in transcribing - and my reply always is why did these people put up stones in the first place if they didn't want us to remember them and something about them. The Protestant stones are always the most elaborate and praisworthy of the person who went before. I always try to excuse what I do to those who tell me I'm mad by saying I'll publish and make some money from this - but- the fact is that for any like me it will cost us a few thousand pounds to publish that 500 volumes and the profit would only be a few thousand pounds and if you think in terms of the cost and time that goes into this work - then there's absolutely no profit in it for us....we'd be better off cleaning the streets! My original post was in response to the questions I saw re 'Tombstones of the Omey' on the Tyrone newsgroup....and whether or not it would be worth the persons while to buy it because they have very little money.....and I was trying to say something about those of us who do this work. I know that I will get the money to publish what i have done, there are a few 'possible' sources of funding -and that is a big 'possible' but I'll manage to publish eventually - beg, borrow or steal as we say. Depends on my sales pitch those of you outside Ireland do not realise how little the Irish are actually interested in family History. Unlike you, we have only a handful of family history societies....in the whole of the thirty two counties (maybe two handfuls). Gravestone works - they vary - Brian Cantwell worked stones to 1880 and any related t those he was reading - some others go to 1900 - these cut off dates being based on the fact that most RC registers which have been filmed had a cut off date of 1880....so whoever was buried by then was probably to be found if at all on film. The 1900 date is based on registers and the fact that the 1901 census is available. When I began initially - I stuck to the 1900 date except in those really small graveyards and then I began to realise the value of the more modern stones. Parish registers aren't open post 1900, and anyone who was born post 1911 would never be known to the searchers unless they already had all the names......not until the 1921 census is made available. On post 1900 stones you see who was born in 1912 and died in 1945..you get more names from a family. So, if you can get information pre 1900 on the greatgrandparents and you can find the grandparents in the 1901 or 1911 census - and you can find them dead and buried in some graveyard - you have more information. Plus, while the wifes' maiden name may not be on the stone, you can give a guess at approximate age at marriage and go hunting for a marriage entry - giving you her maiden name and then you go hunting for her family. Using gravestone information - for a whole county - you can see surname distribution, how it's changed n time, you can track them - where they came from maybe, where they went to - when a concentration of a surname happens close to a county border then you can head into th enext county and see what the distribution is like in the parish next door All a jig saw. Publishers and most others do not recognise the value of modern stones, the idea is to cut most things down to size....and let the rest of you go hunting for whatever you can in the census and registers...... Cost of publishing goes up the more you have in any volume - decreasing the number of publications - or increasing the cost to the author and the buyer. If there is a publication - it is usually on only a part of a county - a part you may not be interested in - why buy it? What I was getting at in my last post is that for any county, all publications should be of value to any researcher in that county because when you put the lot together you get the big picture..... But - to buy all costs money - and regardless of what I have said you may find nothing of value to you in it. The fewer people interested in graveyard publications - the higher the cost to us, the authors.....*But* outside ireland you have all these Family History Societies......and genealogical groups of one sort or another....and in whatever groups you are a member of you may know someone else interested in that county - maybe more than one - so - the solution would be to divide the cost of a publication between yourselves. The more interest the easier it would be for us to publish and sell......... It's not simple to say let every family history society buy each publication becasue each society has so many interests in so many counties in Ireland and so many countries in the world and there are so many publications of everything.......But to find one person as well as yourself interested - maybe more, then it can be feasible. There are also so many family surname newsgroups - and so many surnames are common to particular counties. Groups buying a publication between themselves - to share in a family newsletter..... There are solutions and these solutions would increase the 'popularity' of graveyard publications and then once that happens more and more work would be done and the value of graveyards recognised so that County Councils in ireland and Duchas and anyone else who has a responsibility for graveyards would begin to recognise them for what they are...... Antiquities which should be preserved - not talked about - not guarded and let rot - sources of genealogical and historical information. Maybe then the ones which people like me can't clean up, dig out would be unearthed and preserved.....and recorded in the future for posterity. Jane