How to Transcribe a Cemetery 

Before you start ask yourself these questions:
Will you both have the time it takes?  
Do you want to do just one cemetery or several?
All in one area or County?
Decide if you are going to do your cemetery by row, or randomly. 
Is your list going to be an alphabetical order or the way you took the cemetery down?
What about an index?  
Be prepared:
1.  Check to find out if the cemetery/cemeteries you are thinking of doing have already 
    been done and if so when and where are the records?
2.  Cemeteries are most often public cemeteries or church cemeteries. These cemeteries 
    are usually well cared for and have trustee records as well as church records 
    regarding the burials.  
3.  Be certain to ask the City Hall for the name of the trustee or person who cares for 
    the cemetery.  That person will often know more than what is written on the stone.  
    Trustee records usually give the following information 
     i)  Name of person who bought the lot (often related). 
    ii)  Name of person who cares for the lot or pays for the perpetual care.   
   iii)  Name of next of kin.
    iv)  Birth and death date of the deceased. 
     v)  Cause of death. 
    vi)  Last known residence.
   vii)  Type of coffin (wood, stone, etc).
4.  Church or trustee records may be your best bet when you are dealing with a huge 
    cemetery
5.  Evaluate the records that may have been done as to who did them and how accurate 
    are they?  
6.  If you are not willing to have them as close to perfect as possible then don’t 
    waist your time and money!
7.  Other may depend on your work as being "right as rain"! 
8.  Know what you might be getting into as far as neighborhood and area are.  Are there 
    snakes, briers, fences, sunken grave, etc? How much trouble will you have reading the 
    tombstones? Can you get to all of them in any given cemetery?
9.  Tombstones can give a wealth of information about the people who are buried there. Be
    certain to check out the information and validate it if possible.
10. You might be able to find out even more by checking history books. 
11. Take the tools and supplies you need with you.  Examples of this are:  
        i)  Writing pad and pens. Writing stand or clipboard 
       ii)  lunch and drinking water
      iii)  Rubber bands 
       iv)  Large money clips (in order to keep your papers together) 
	v)  Chalk enough to do the job 
       vi)  Soft paint brush 
      vii)  Putty knife and a sharp knife or pruning shears
     viii)  Gallon of water 
       ix)  some rags and some papertowels
        x)  first aid kit alcohol wipes for minor cuts and scrapes 
       xi)  trowel or small shovel
      xii)  bug repellent
     xiii)  old shoes or boots proper clothes warm or cool hats, gloves
      xiv)  camera and film
       xv)  heavy screw driver or pry bar
      xvi)  compass 
     xvii)  maps of area
    xviii)  cellular phone if possible and carry it with you while you are working in 
            the cemetery phone numbers for emergency  
      xix)  box to keep it all together
          
  Be sure to take everything home you took with you, including your trash.  Don’t leave 
anything behind except your foot prints.
  What does the law say about going onto private property in search of a cemetery, what 
about "NO TRESPASSING" signs or posted property?  Ask for permission for access, tell the
landowner what you want to do try to find out the history of any cemetery you work on. 
Get whatever maps you may need and know how to read them.
What about family or farm cemeteries? 
Do they need to be done?  How do we find the ones with no stones? 
Here is where land records come into play!  All cemeteries had to be documented,all 
cemeteries have to go through land records.  It is like someone wanting to come in and 
have a landfill...all have to be documented
  Directions are so very important to anyone using your research or attempting to verify 
your work, names of the cemetery, may depend on who you ask.  Record any and all names 
you think it may be called, this is why the directions can be so important.
  Highway Dept in most state have maps for sale that mark the locations of Cemeteries on 
them, but NOT all!  Use all the resources you can think of to locate the cemetery or 
cemeteries you want to inventory.  Undertaker, Stone Cutters, County Tax Assessors, 
Librarians, neighbors, plot plans, (use them when you can) 
    Abbreviations
Make a glossary of any abbreviations you use in your work.
Identifying unfamiliar markers, in order to identify cemetery and tombstone markings 
that are unfamiliar go to you try going to http://www.idea.edu/courses/college/gen/cert/mont6/cert6_2.htm.
This page shows several good examples of markers and what they look like.  Match the 
letters on the markers to the organizations and then write to the organizations to see 
if they have records of memberships in that area.
  Membership records of the Grand Army of the Republic often give a lot of information 
about people and their Civil War ancestors. 
  Abbreviations on tombstones can also be confusing the most often used are:
 "d/o   daughter of" 
 "m/o   mother of"
 "s/o   son of" 
 "f/o   father of" 
 "w/o   wife of" and  
 "R. I. P.   rest in peace"  
  Do you  want to record only the information you find on the tombstones or 
added information you may be able to develop from other sources, 
ex. S/S Death Index, Marriage records. Census Rec. etc. 
  What to do if you can not read either the spelling or dates?  
  What about marriage dates?  
  What about maiden names?  
  What about relationships? 
  What about spelling obvious errors etc? 
"HELP", don’t be afraid to ask for help from folks you meet in the cemetery while you are working 
  Last but not least, finding additional family members in cemeteries:  
  when you finally find your long lost relatives tombstones write down the names 
of people buried next to them, they also may be relatives.  If people weren’t buried in 
family plots they were often buried as close to their relatives as possible sometimes 
just a few rows away,  Take notice of the foot stones as well (stones marking the ends of graves),
they are only about a foot long and five inches wide this will tell were more are buried 
than who is on the headstone.