This article was written by Donna Brand who
founded this website  

"How to Inventory A Cemetery
&
Write Its Book"

Hello!  I'm glad you are thinking of doing a cemetery inventory.  
Our cemeteries are so important.  They represent our heritage. 
When they are gone, they can never be replaced, so one
way to preserve them is to write a book about them.
Its easy, and the book explains how its done.

Here are just a few samples from the book.

This is where you need to stop and think ahead of time. 
Several questions need to be asked and answered before 
buying anything. For instance, is this a large cemetery of 
more than 500 or is this a small cemetery of fewer than 50?

For the small cemeteries of less than 50, several other 
questions need to be asked and plans made accordingly. 
How old is it? Are the stones in good condition?

Drawing the first Map

This is one of the most important steps in the whole process. 
While the map is being created is when the decisions are 
made about where to begin the inventory. Some folks like 
to work north to south while others prefer to work east to west. 
In my own experience I have found that the length of 
the grave is from west to east or east to west, either 
direction is the norm, while the width of a grave lies from 
north to south. This seems to be true even when the 
cemetery has an odd-shape.

Below I have offered an example of an odd shaped 
cemetery to show how it can be worked. This particular 
cemetery has 6 sides and as you will see I have sectioned 
it off in a north to south formation.

Now its time to get into the format of how you want to put 
it on the computer. I am going to show several different ways 
I have seen the information recorded and allow you to make 
your own choice about which format you are more 
comfortable with. Or, use your best judgment 
here and create your own format.

Embedding pictures into the book.

Pictures bring the story of a cemetery together and helps 
add that personal touch. However, it is hard to do, so 
do not be discouraged if it does not work the 
first time. Just keep trying.

It is now possible to write beside the picture or 
anywhere else a caption may be needed to 
give a definition to the picture.

Establishing a price for your book is a very important step 
in the process of getting the information to the public. Giving 
it away gets very expensive. While folks will love you, 
you could be going into debt trying to share the information. 
It may amaze the Internet user, but there are far more 
people in the libraries than there are on the Internet.

This book requires an Adobe Acrobat Reader.
You may download a FREE copy from:
http://www.adobe.com

Just click on the yellow icon that says
"Get Acrobat Reader"

If this book sounds like it would help you, its 
easy to buy, just click here.  It takes about 
3 minutes to download, but it will save you 
hours of frustration during the process of doing a
cemetery inventory and writing its book.

email donna

If you have questions, just drop me a line.

For those who do not have a word processor that 
will create an index, I provide a service for that.  
Here are the instructions.

The cemetery information must be typed and sent on a floppy disk, 
or a series of floppy disk using WinZip, in a plain text format.  
Please do not ask me to transcribe your document.  I just 
don't have time.  Send an email for prices as circumstances 
and volume of work change with each cemetery.  
Send that email to:

Donna

You may download a "free" copy of WinZip here.
I look forward to hearing from you.