I have been doing genealogy since about 1984 that started with my daughter's 3rd grade Family Tree project. I moved from Missouri where I was born and raised to Wisconsin in 1999. Since I hit a brick wall on my paternal line that I was researching, I was looking for something to do with my time when I retired from working. With my love of puzzles and cemeteries, I decided to photograph headstones for FindAGrave, and fill in missing information on memorials when I could find records to support the information.

If you are a relative of any of the memorials I created, please request a transfer of the memorial. I created a memorials for those individuals without one since I took a picture of their headstone, and have no connection to them personally.

Each headstone marks the final resting place of someone's father, mother, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, grandparent, etc. and I am more than happy to share my photos. Feel free to use any photo I have taken for your genealogy records.

Dear Ancestor

Your tombstone stands among the rest
Neglected and alone
The name and date are chiseled out
On polished marble stone
It reaches out to all who care
It is too late to mourn

You did not know that I exist
You died and I was born
Yet each of us are cells of you
In flesh and blood and bone
Our blood contracts and beats a pulse
Entirely not our own

Dear Ancestor, the place you filled
One hundred years ago
Spreads out among the ones you left
Who would have loved you so
I wonder how you lived and loved
I wonder if you knew
That someday I would find this spot
And come to visit you.

Walter Butler Palmer (1868-1932)

I have been doing genealogy since about 1984 that started with my daughter's 3rd grade Family Tree project. I moved from Missouri where I was born and raised to Wisconsin in 1999. Since I hit a brick wall on my paternal line that I was researching, I was looking for something to do with my time when I retired from working. With my love of puzzles and cemeteries, I decided to photograph headstones for FindAGrave, and fill in missing information on memorials when I could find records to support the information.

If you are a relative of any of the memorials I created, please request a transfer of the memorial. I created a memorials for those individuals without one since I took a picture of their headstone, and have no connection to them personally.

Each headstone marks the final resting place of someone's father, mother, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, grandparent, etc. and I am more than happy to share my photos. Feel free to use any photo I have taken for your genealogy records.

Dear Ancestor

Your tombstone stands among the rest
Neglected and alone
The name and date are chiseled out
On polished marble stone
It reaches out to all who care
It is too late to mourn

You did not know that I exist
You died and I was born
Yet each of us are cells of you
In flesh and blood and bone
Our blood contracts and beats a pulse
Entirely not our own

Dear Ancestor, the place you filled
One hundred years ago
Spreads out among the ones you left
Who would have loved you so
I wonder how you lived and loved
I wonder if you knew
That someday I would find this spot
And come to visit you.

Walter Butler Palmer (1868-1932)