We who research our family's history are good at remembering. We remember often, and we remember well. But, our memories last for only as long as we are here. The main purpose of The USGenWeb Tombstone Transcription Project is to organize volunteers who will work together to create a lasting tribute to our ancestors. We will survey cemeteries, transcribe tombstone inscriptions, and have that work archived for the future and made easily accessible to all. We are also working with genealogical and historical societies to gain permission to use put their previously published cemetery records online in our Archives. The fundamental aim of the entire USGenWeb Project is to make genealogical and historical records available to researchers anywhere and everywhere and to make certain that the access is easy and completely without any cost to the user.

The tombstones of our ancestors, always meant to be lasting memorials to the lives of those gone before, are suffering the ravages of time, weather and vandals. These stones are becoming more difficult to read every day, and some have already faded to the point that deciphering them is next to impossible. Fortunately, many are still legible. But, of those we can read today, how many will still be legible in another ten or twenty years?

We need to record these tombstone inscriptions now_before they are lost forever to the winds and the rains. Though many cemeteries have already been recorded by various genealogical and historical societies, just as many have not. And, of those recorded, how accessible is that data to the world? If we join together and get these transcriptions archived, we will guarantee that our ancestors are not forgotten_that their memorials will live on so that future generations may remember them as well as we do.

Many of you may be asking yourselves why is it so important to archive these records in The USGenWeb Project Archives? Genealogical and historical societies have been keeping these kinds of records for years_publishing them in books and selling them to finance other society functions. Copies of these books are available in society libraries, as well in the DAR Library, the NGS Library, the LDS Family History Centers, and in many other locations. The USGenWeb Archives can provide an ease of access to records that these assorted libraries cannot. Our Archives is a large, comprehensive and ever-growing repository of genealogical and historical data. We have a search engine in place that makes it simple for a researcher to search the records of an entire state for a particular name or record of interest. A records repository like this provides easy access to the records by anyone with a computer and Internet capabilities. Many authors have told me that having their records online have actually helped the sales of the publications. One of the major reasons for this is that a researcher is able to search the records to determine if the data needed is contained in that particular publication. Once they have determined that it is, they buy the book because they know it contains the information they need and they want to own the reference source. Archiving records in The USGenWeb Project Archives is really no different than having copies of the books available in reference sections of libraries. And do keep in mind that all features of The USGenWeb Project are completely free of cost to all researchers.

This project began in March of 1996. It started as a Memorial Day Project and was meant to be a temporary effort that tied into Memorial Day visits to cemeteries. However, the immediate success of the project made it clear that something like this was both needed and wanted by online researchers. So, the project was revamped and officially became allied with The USGenWeb Project at that time. Since its inception, the project has added hundreds of cemetery surveys to The USGenWeb Archives. Almost every state is now represented in the registry. The surveys that have been donated to the project run the gamut from tiny family burial plots to large databases the include the burials for an entire county. To us, each plot is important, and there is no cemetery too small to warrant inclusion. Many of the surveys are for tiny cemeteries that are in out of the way locations. Many others were done years ago for cemeteries that are no longer even visibly there. These surveys are obviously invaluable to genealogists.

We have also added some very large cemeteries to the Archives. Wayne Pigg provided us with his extensive database of Erick Cemetery in Beckham County, Oklahoma containing over 3000 names. Caroline Ogle submitted both Port Hudson National and Baton Rouge National Cemeteries to the Louisiana Archives. Geoff Walden sent us his work on Cave Hill Confederate Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky which includes a fascinating narrative about the cemetery, its history, and facts about those buried there. There are several submitters who have included county wide databases. One of the largest is the one donated by Bill Hamm. Mr. Hamm has been keeping track of Carter County, Oklahoma burials for many years. His database includes 67 cemeteries and over 30,000 names. Wanda Purcell has sent us her files on all of the known cemeteries in Roger Mills County, Oklahoma. The Mansfield Historical Society gave permission through Margaret R. Bates for us to put their Tarrant County Cemeteries online. Bill Jordan of Gloucester County, Virginia sent us the disk of his work, The Cemeteries of Lower Gloucester, for inclusion in the Archives.

I have mentioned only a few of the many wonderful cemetery submissions that we have available online for researchers to use easily and freely. These are just examples to show the diverse types of cemetery records that have been sent to us. We value each and every submission.

You can participate in this project, even if you live thousands of miles from the graves of your ancestors. If you live in California and your ancestors sleep in Virginia, you can record tombstone data in a cemetery near where you live. If you are in Texas and your ancestors sleep in Maine, record a Texas cemetery.

After the recording is done, the data should be donated to The USGenWeb Project Archives for the appropriate state. If you have already compiled tombstone information, you can donate that work to the project. Having this data archived in a repository like The USGenWeb Project Archives will make this information accessible to the world. Many can benefit and the memories can be multiplied many times over.

Won't you please join in this endeavor? Won't you please organize interested individuals in your area into a group to record this important data? Local churches might be willing to have a few members record the data in the cemeteries on the church grounds. Genealogy clubs and societies are a natural to participate in a project of this nature. Or individuals can go out and record the data themselves or as a family project. Many young people have undertaken cemetery surveys as Eagle Scout Projects and Girl Scout Silver Award Projects.

We have created a registry, by state and county, of individuals and groups who plan to record cemetery data for our project. That registry is available for viewing online so that everyone can see which cemeteries are being recorded and who is doing the transcribing. The registry information stays on the page after the cemetery information has been uploaded to the Archives and the records can be accessed from the registry page. The registry also includes volunteers who are willing to do look-ups in books that they own to help out other researchers. We also have links to cemetery surveys that are online but are not in our Archives. The goal is to make records freely and easily available to researchers no matter where the records are kept.

To register a cemetery, just send me a message telling me the name of the cemetery, the county and state where the cemetery is located and the names of the people who will be doing the transcribing. If you have already transcribed cemetery data and would like for your work to become part of this project, just can send that to me as well. I can reached by email at pamreid@dc.jones.com. My address is Pam Reid, 4265 Berwick Place, Lake Ridge, Virginia 22192. If you have additional questions, you can telephone me at ( 703-878-0407.

Please do visit the USGenWeb Tombstone Transcription Project online at:

About the author: Pamela Brown Reid was born and raised in Spartanburg County, South Carolina. She graduated from the University of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina with a B.A. in Journalism. She married John Ernest Reid and relocated to Virginia in 1977. Since becoming interested in genealogy, she has found that so many of her ancestors started out in Virginia that coming to Virginia was really like coming home. The Reids have three children, Brittany Thorne Reid, 15, Molly Hines Reid, 6 and Andrew James Reid, 4. Pam's interest in genealogy stemmed from an old family Bible that belonged to her mother. The Bible recorded the births of William "Mill Creek Billy" Foster , his wife Sarah, and their children. There were some of William Foster's poetic writings in the Bible as well. She wanted to learn more about these people and a passion was born. Her favorite quote is the inscription on one of the statues at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.---"What is past is prologue".