Photographic Cemetery Surveys

I'm not a member, but Saving Graves does have a lot of good information about cemetery preservation and how to read difficult inscriptions without damaging the stones.

A good site to look up cemeteries and graves is Find A Grave. More is being added all the time. I've set up an account there and am in the process of copying my cemetery entries. The more places these folks are listed, the easier it will be for relatives to find them. :-).

I had been calling this section of my web site "Cemetery Photographs", but realized that could be all too easily confused with the excellent Cemetery Photos website on Rootsweb and possibly others with similar names.

This section currently contains mostly photos of cemeteries in the areas of upstate New York that my families are from, although I am also interested in photographing local cemeteries from the area where I live (near Austin, Texas). Some of these photos were taken by myself or members of my family. Others have been generously contributed by correspondents.

PLEASE NOTE: Except for Laurel Cemetery in Ulster County, New York, and Bratton Cemetery in Travis County, Texas, these are NOT complete listings of the cemeteries in question - the photos are mostly stones of immediate relatives / ancestors, although, as noted previously, several other stones have been generously contributed.

I DO NOT live in New York state, so I cannot visit these cemeteries to look for specific individuals except when I have the opportunity to take a vacation in the area. A good place to look for volunteers who can help you that way is Cemetery Photos.

This section is still heavily under construction as I continue to upload scans of photos of local Texas cemeteries that I find opportunities to photograph and add links to additional information that I have been able to find on some of them.

Donations of photographs ARE welcome and DO NOT have to be from one of the cemeteries on my list. My free Hotmail mailbox is fairly small, so I prefer large image files to be sent to my AOL address: treebz65@aol.com.

Cemeteries are listed alphabetically by state and county:

New York cemeteries
Texas cemeteries

NEW YORK STATE

Allegany County

These photos were submitted by correspondents researching a branch of the MIDDAUGH family in New York state. These photos were taken around June 3, 2005.

Dutchess County

Evergreen Cemetery or Pine Plains Cemetery (Village of Pine Plains)
Red Hook Methodist Burial Ground (Village of Red Hook, Township of Red Hook). I don't think I am related to any of the people buried here. I have not seen any online surveys of this cemetery, so I photographed several stones here during my visit to NY.
Rhinebeck Association Cemetery (Village of Rhinebeck, Township of Rhinebeck).
Rhinebeck Reformed Dutch Church cemetery - (Village of Rhinebeck, Township of Rhinebeck). Only a few photos of Heermance stones so far. I am probably related to the Heermance family members buried here, but have not yet had much opportunity to do much research on my connection to this line. I hope to get more photos from this cemetery the next time I visit the area.
Yeoman Cemetery (Milan Township)

The Dutchess County Genealogy Page on NYGenWeb

Dutchess County cemeteries

The Dutchess County page on USGenNet also has surveys of Dutchess County cemeteries. Be aware that some pages on this website have large graphics and may take some time to load over slow connections.

Kinship offers some books of cemetery and death records for Dutchess County. Under their "Miscellaneous" section for the county there is also a book of obituaries starting in 1849.

Greene County

Halcott Cemetery - the only photos here so far were submitted by correspondents.

Saratoga County

Waterford Rural Cemetery - Waterford, New York.
There is a website with transcriptions of Waterford Rural Cemetery's burial records at http://www.rootsweb.com/~nysarato/cembeg.htm.

Ulster County

Bushkill Cemetery, (West Shokan, Olive Township)
Fairview Cemetery, (Stone Ridge) - I don't have any photos from this cemetery yet, but am looking for photos of stones of BARRINGER family members - also any related branches like BANKS, NICHOLS, VANDEMARK etc.
Laurel Cemetery / Laurel Hill Cemetery (West Shokan, Olive Township). One of only two completed cemetery surveys that we've done. The other is Bratton Cemetery in Travis County, Texas.
Palentown Cemetery (Palentown, Township of Rochester)
Tongore Cemetery, (Olive Township)

The Greene and Ulster Counties Genealogy Page on NYGenWeb

Ulster County cemeteries

TEXAS

Travis County

Bratton Cemetery - Bratton Cemetery is a small pioneer farm cemetery located near the now very busy intersection of Interstate Highway 35 and F.M. 1325 just south of Round Rock, Texas. I have seen this listed in both Travis and Williamson counties. It is right on the border between both. Since F.M. 1325 roughly follows the border in this location and the cemetery is on the south side of the road, I have listed it under Travis County. This is one of only two cemeteries (so far) that we have done a complete survey on (or tried to - it's possible that we may have missed a few stones). The other is Laurel Cemetery in Ulster County, NY.
Merrelltown or Merrilltown Cemetery. I hope to eventually be able to visit and photograph this cemetery, also located along F.M. 1325 further south of the border between Travis and Williamson Counties. Currently, traffic and construction in the area make it too difficult to get near the place. There appears to be a church or something being built on a hill just to the north of the cemetery - perhaps when it's finished, there will be a parking lot that can be used to park safely near the cemetery. In the meantime, I did find another survey of this cemetery in Rootsweb's archives.

Williamson County

I.O.O.F. Cemetery (Independent Order of Odd Fellows Cemetery, Georgetown) - This is not an actual survey, just some old photographs of mine that were taken as part of some photography class projects back in 1986 (the angel whose face I used for a background image on these cemetery pages comes from these photos). These are in black and white and few of them have legible inscriptions as most were intended as depth-of-field studies, exposure practice, etc. Since this was one of the first times I had ever used an SLR camera, much less a completely manual one, the quality of these photos is not all that great. Still, I thought somebody might enjoy seeing them, so I have posted them here.
UPDATE: I visited this cemetery again in November 2002 during Thanksgiving weekend and was able to photograph a few more of the stones and sculptures - this time I did take names ;-).
Round Rock Cemetery (Round Rock) - these entries are transcribed, as best as I can read them, from a few photos included on the CD-ROM "Austin & Vicinity: The Human World" published by Visual Delights, Inc. Photos are not included in my gravestone listing. The photos on the CD-ROM are copyrighted by Visual Delights, Inc. and so are not reproduced here. I have not yet had the time to attempt a survey of Round Rock Cemetery and so do not yet have any photos of my own to put here.
Some further information and photos about Round Rock Cemetery can be found at Austin Explorer's Round Rock Cemetery page.

The Williamson County, Texas Master Online Cemetery Index
Three-legged Willie: History and Genealogy of Williamson County, Texas. This site has a list of cemeteries in Williamson County, some of which have listings of the graves. There are many other resources and links on this site too.

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