I grew up among the weeds and gravestones at Friendship Baptist Church Cemetery south of Danville in Morgan County, Alabama, where four generations of my family lay buried. I never missed a Decoration Sunday, and hearing my loved ones talk of those who had gone before, it always felt as if they were still with us through those memories.

The genealogy bug bit me at the very young age of sixteen, and it burrowed deep into my soul and grew into a passion for history and the South. I'm now a graduate student in Southern history at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss).

I surveyed Friendship Cemetery in 2009 and photographed all of the graves. The initial work of uploading it all is done, but I am gradually researching the families and filling out their records. The listing on FindAGrave should be a complete enumeration of marked graves. I will strive to keep it updated.

I've focused a lot of my genealogy work on the family of Zachariah Dutton, but I also feel a connection to the many other families whose roots are at Friendship and in that area, or whose paths have crossed that of the Dutton family. Some names, by no means inclusive: Penn, Day, McDonald, Gibson, Hogan, Simpson, and Kitchens.

I have many other roots among the early settlers of Alabama, including the surnames, in North Alabama: Alldredge, McCulley, Keel, and Frazier; and in South Alabama: Richardson, Cook, Bowdoin, and Green. In South Carolina, my lines extend back into the Douglass and Hodges families.

I grew up among the weeds and gravestones at Friendship Baptist Church Cemetery south of Danville in Morgan County, Alabama, where four generations of my family lay buried. I never missed a Decoration Sunday, and hearing my loved ones talk of those who had gone before, it always felt as if they were still with us through those memories.

The genealogy bug bit me at the very young age of sixteen, and it burrowed deep into my soul and grew into a passion for history and the South. I'm now a graduate student in Southern history at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss).

I surveyed Friendship Cemetery in 2009 and photographed all of the graves. The initial work of uploading it all is done, but I am gradually researching the families and filling out their records. The listing on FindAGrave should be a complete enumeration of marked graves. I will strive to keep it updated.

I've focused a lot of my genealogy work on the family of Zachariah Dutton, but I also feel a connection to the many other families whose roots are at Friendship and in that area, or whose paths have crossed that of the Dutton family. Some names, by no means inclusive: Penn, Day, McDonald, Gibson, Hogan, Simpson, and Kitchens.

I have many other roots among the early settlers of Alabama, including the surnames, in North Alabama: Alldredge, McCulley, Keel, and Frazier; and in South Alabama: Richardson, Cook, Bowdoin, and Green. In South Carolina, my lines extend back into the Douglass and Hodges families.