Tuesday, September 24, 2013

My Graveyard Kit


Is it weird that I have a graveyard kit?  How else can you go grave hunting in an organized and well-equipped manner?  Mine is stored in a pink bucket with a decal on it.  (I’m a very girly grave hunter.)

The bucket contains all the stuff I need for proper gravestone hunting (except a goodly supply of water—never leave home without a goodly supply of water).  The bucket contains:
  • A notebook and a pen, along with any information that I had the foresight to gather together beforehand.
  • My camera, of course.  How else can I take photos to upload to findagrave.com?
  • A little pink flashlight, for casting shadows on gravestones for better pictures.  The experts advise a big mirror for that purpose, but that won’t fit into my bucket.
  • Grass snips, a trowel, and a whisk broom, for quick cleanup work as required.
  • Cotton gloves.
  • A second bucket just like the first one, for hauling water if there’s a faucet.  (But I learned the hard way to also bring plenty of gallon jugs of water, especially when going to very old or abandoned cemeteries.)
  • A stiff-but-soft scrub brush that fits well into my husband’s hand.
  • Liquid soap—a special kind.  (I did a lot of research on this subject.)  It’s called “Orvus” and it has three main uses, so I’m told:  Washing horses, washing antique fabrics, and washing gravestones.  Fancy that!…
  • Wet wipes.  I like having clean hands when I use my camera (and all the rest of the time, too, actually).
  • A big Ziploc bag, for kneeling upon to take photographs.  I don’t like dirty knees either.
  • Bug repellent.  I once went wandering through some tall grass in the woods in cropped pants, looking for a few old gravestones which made up a small old family cemetery...  I came out with about a hundred bug bites on my lower legs.  I’m lucky I didn’t end up with Lyme disease!
  • White chalk for marking trees and driveways for navigational purposes.  Don’t want to walk the same rows twice if I don’t have to.
  • Little American flags.  I like to leave them at the graves of veterans.

Okay, so is this normal, or weird?  All genealogists love graveyards, right?  I once saw a coffee mug for genealogists that said, “I’m only interested in dead people.”  Well, yes, but I wouldn’t say only…  

2 comments:

  1. I love how organized you are. I need to get on the ball and have a kit ready. Thanks for the tips

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  2. I would also add a few things -- 1. You need to know the rules of the specific cemetery when you go. Some don't allow visitors to use soap on the gravestones or do any clipping.
    2. Paper and a large black crayon or heelball (found at art supply stores) for doing rubbings.
    3. A GPS unit or geocaching app for your phone, so you can record the GPS coordinates of the grave for Findagrave.com and personal reference -- especially if the grave is not in a maintained cemetery.
    4. A printout or map of the cemetery, and any information you can get from the cemetery office.

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