Has your genealogy research made you want to know what your ancestor’s gravestones look like? Sometimes, it isn’t possible to drop everything, and plan a trip to a graveyard that is hours away from where you live, or is located clear across the country from where you are. One alternative is to visit a virtual cemetery.
What is a virtual cemetery? It is the term given to a website that has detailed information about the graves in a particular, real, cemetery. You may be able to find photographs of individual gravestones. There may be a list of names of the people who have been buried there, their birth dates, and their day of death. Sometimes, you can find details about inscriptions that appear on a gravestone. In order to get the most benefit from visiting a virtual cemetery, you need to know where to look. What state do you think your ancestor was buried in? Do you know the name of the county? After you know where to start, then you can get online, and see if there is a virtual cemetery that covers that area. Virtual cemeteries allow you to continue your genealogy research from the comfort of your own home.
Here are a few of the virtual cemeteries that you can visit:
The USGenWeb Project has a website for the Hickory Grove Virtual Cemetery. Click on a name to view that person’s gravestone. This cemetery is located in Claiborne Parish, Louisiana.
The Union Cemetery Historical Society also has a virtual cemetery you can visit. This very old cemetery is located in Missouri, and was created when both the town of Westport and the town of Kansas had filled up all the spaces in their cemeteries due to the cholera epidemic of 1849. You can view photos of some of the graves, and take a look at a very detailed cemetery map.
Take a virtual tour of the Haynie Chapel Cemetery. This website was created as a project for a Sociology class. Select from the links at the side of the page to see photos of, and read details about older graves, newer graves, unusual graves, family groups, or graves of infants and children. This is the cemetery for Haynie Chapel Methodist Church, located in Travis County, in Texas.
Image of Jeremy Noble on Flickr