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The Kitchen Table

Another thing you can do on FindAGrave......

13 years ago

If you're nosy (like me), you can check to see if a cemetery has any famous people buried there. Sometimes "famous" is no one I ever heard of, but even those listings can be interesting to browse.

This evening I was looking at Kensico Cemetery in hopes of finding some family members, but instead I found

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Comments (11)

Lindsey_CA
13 years ago
And today is her birthday. She'd be 79.
alisande
Original Author
13 years ago
Oh, that's right. On her memorial, flowers were posted today with the message "My everything." I wonder if they're from Mel Brooks.

FindAGrave's home page has a link where you can do a famous person search. I haven't tried that yet.
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frogged: You have 2 questions: 1) What's the big deal about finding a 4th or Nth cousin, and 2) what do you get by finding a name on a gravestone? 1. To me, I do not concentrate on the side branches of my main tree. I do collect that data when it is readily available and add it to my tree if there is spare time. Sometimes, these side data points to new information. Lately, I have kept an eye out for genetic disorders or interesting features that I may have inheirted. My focus is on my main line. I have started with my g-g-g grandparents ( two sets, both in my father's line). My mother's line has been fairly well researched by members of her family and I have a copy. My mother's line was greatly affected by the Civil War. I am learning about early American History as I go. I have discovered that my ancestors were connected to the history of this country that was surprising. My one g-g-grandfather served under Andrew Jackson in the War of the Floridas, and then later in Illinios, he was a Captain in the Black Hawk War when Jackson was President. The family in TN lived near where Jackson raised and raced horses. Andrew Jackson introduced the Order of Masons to Tennessee and a member of my family was the first Grand Mason in TN. The original family was raised on a 420 acre plantation in Virginia when it was a colony. Five brothers were all in the Revolutionary War. If you trace you ancestors back far enough, you may find your connection to history as well. 2. Interest in headstones Sometimes, a headstone is the only written record one can find about a particular person. After searching for awhile, one begins to realize that family oral traditions are important, but subject to error. As a tale gets retold, embelishments get added and old memories can fade. My own mother had a habit of filling in gaps with assumed data and not differentiating between the factual and supposed. Finding something written in the past can be a thrill, but even with headstones, mistakes can be present. However, when a headstone is all you got, it is the best data available. In both cases above, it takes good detective work to ferret out a family history. The hunt and discovery is the name of the game!
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I have had both good & bad experiences with F.A.G. I made requests for photos of DH's grandparents & a great Aunt, and people very graciously have helped out. I've filled a few local requests for photos. I don't have time to do many, but if they're close by, I do what I can. When my FIL passed, 3 days after the funeral, I went to the website to make his memorial, only to discover a "volunteer" of no relation had already put it up. She put it up the day the obituary ran in the local paper. He wasn't even in the ground yet! I requested that she transfer it to me, she refused. According to her, I had no right or business maintaining the memorial just because I was a relative. In her "bio" on Find a grave, she states, "unless you are a contributor (to F.A.G.) I will turn you down flat." THAT is totally against F.A.G's rules. She has 30K plus memorials she's added. She's one of those people who gives the contributors a bad name. Sadly, there are many contributors that get a thrill of having big numbers behind their names. Some kind of power trip, I guess. In cases such as this, you just contact F. A. G. and explain your relationship to the deceased and they'll transfer it. I did. I received a nasty note from her, so I just removed the site she'd made and built a brand new one. LOL Alisande, thank you for your contributions. It's a lot of work!
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murraysmom Zone 6a OH
13 years ago
That is so neat. She was a cool actress. I bet the flowers were from Mel Brooks. Isn't that amazing that you found it today? On her birthday??? In the cemetery I was doing my FindAGrave assignment, the famous person is Charlie Rich. I had never heard of him, but apparently he was a big gambler. I didn't see his monument, but I might stop back to see if I can find it.
alisande
Original Author
13 years ago
There was a country music singer named Charlie Rich. They used to call him the Silver Fox. Not the same one, I guess.

Yes, it's odd that I found Anne Bancroft's memorial on her birthday......
kayjones
13 years ago
From Wikipedia:

Charlie Rich died in his sleep on July 25, 1995, in a Hammond, Louisiana, motel. He was 62 years old. The cause of death was a blood clot in his lung. He was buried in the Memorial Park Cemetery in Memphis, Tennessee.
abby221
13 years ago
You have me hooked. I haven't gone to a cemetery to take pictures or anything but I did go through the local newspaper and found what cemetery they were going to be buried at and added all the info. I also copied and pasted the obit. because after 30 days it goes away and then you have to pay for it.
murraysmom Zone 6a OH
13 years ago
Here's the info on "my" Charlie Rich. Seems he was a card dealer for Wild Bill Hickock.

I hope it's OK to post this picture. I got it off of FindAGrave
Kathsgrdn
13 years ago
I don't think he was the country singer-lol. Alisande, just wondering how many grave sites you've looked for and how many times you were successful? Did you look them up at the courthouse or wherever you go to see burial information before doing the search? And how do you get to private cemeteries?

This has led me to request a copy of my grandmother's death certificate. The dates of her death aren't matching up. The person who searched for Flem looked into my grandmother's death and found she died 12 years later than my dad told me she died! So, now I'm confused....and I'm trying to find a picture I took a few years ago of her headstone.
alisande
Original Author
13 years ago
Kath, according to FindAGrave, I've filled 16 photo requests. I'm guessing I've looked unsuccessfully for about half that many. These were in very small, old cemeteries where I could look at every stone in one trip. The cemeteries always included some stones that were so old they were unreadable, so I assume that's why I didn't find the name(s) I was looking for.

I also have a large backlog of requests--not sure how many, but I recently moved them all into one file on my computer. I began volunteering to do this when I wasn't working. When I had to go back to work, the job ate up a lot of my free time. Plus gravestone photography is definitely a seasonal activity for me. With my Raynaud's Syndrome, there's no way I could be outside doing this in the cold weather. This summer I started trying to catch up, but I still have a long way to go on the backlog--and I continue to receive new requests.

I may have mentioned that I often get request that are out of my area. When that happens, I email the person making the request and explain that it's not likely I'll take the picture but I wish them luck finding someone else to do it.

I haven't done any research beforehand other than speaking to the person in charge of the cemetery. Sometimes the request includes a location within the cemetery, but usually not.

I'm not sure what you mean by private cemeteries. If I need to know who's in charge of a certain cemetery, I always find out by calling one of the local funeral directors.

Hope this helps.
Kathsgrdn
13 years ago
I mean a family cemetery, on private property. I think one of the graves I was thinking of looking for is in one as it doesn't come up on any searches and the last name is a common name around here. It is also the name of the county next to ours but there isn't a cemetery by that name.
alisande
Original Author
13 years ago
Kath, I haven't run into any family cemeteries, so I'm no help with that. There's a house not far from me with a single grave in the front yard (yes, really), surrounded by a grave-sized chain-link fence......but I'm guessing that's not what you mean. :-)

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