How to Transcribe a Cemetery

You can be a part of preserving your local history by engaging in the service of cemetery transcription. Once you have grasped a basic understanding of how to go about transcribing a cemetery, it can be a relaxing and rewarding hobby. These basic pointers can help get you on your way.

Before You Begin:

Find out if previous transcription work has been done on the cemetery. Check out genealogical websites as well as your local historical society or library. You may find that a cemetery has already been completed, or that the transcriptions done in the past aide you in updating the records.

Find out when visitors are permitted on the grounds or obtain permission to be on the land if necessary. Be aware that abandoned cemeteries may require extra legwork to discover who owns the land in order to receive the proper permission.

Check with the cemetery and/or church office to see if they have a copy of the plat of the cemetery and interment records.

Prepare your supplies:

It would be helpful for you to have your transcription supplies readily accessible. The following items would be helpful to carry with you:

Pen and paper
Camera
Grass clippers
Spray bottle of water - this can be helpful to bring out difficult to read transcriptions
Soft brushes to clean off stones
Gardening knee pad

Document General Cemetery Information:

Record the name of the cemetery and location. Be sure to include thorough detail on the location. If possible, include landmarks and even GPS coordinates. The plat map of the cemetery can be very handy. If you cannot obtain one, considering drawing one of your own. For larger cemeteries, it may be helpful to break the map of the cemetery into smaller sections.

There may be other general cemetery information you want to include in your transcription information, but is not entirely necessary. This information might include a brief history of the cemetery, a description of the condition of the cemetery, the range of dates of interment from the oldest marker to the most recent, and a photograph of the cemetery.

Record the information:

Make a plan for how you will move through the cemetery. Keep your pattern systematic. If you choose to use the plat of the cemetery that you obtained or created, follow it so as not to miss any stones. Begin recording the information on the stones and record exactly as it appears, line by line. Do not use abbreviations. Keep the spelling and punctuation identical to what appears on the stone. Record all the information, including epitaphs. Be sure to check the back and sides of the stone, and check for foot stones that may mark additional graves. Record larger family plots as a group. Place in brackets [] any information that you added or interpreted from the stone. If possible, consider photographing the stones.

Share the data:

Perhaps the most important thing to do is to make the data you collected readily accessible to others. Consider formatting your data and giving a paper copy to your local historical society or library. Many online sites would gladly load your data to your site. Two such sites are Find A Grave and The U.S. GenWeb Project.

Every day the stones in our cemeteries are being worn away by the elements. It is a sad fact that a little bit of history is lost. Cemetery transcription captures the history of the "every day" people and records relevant family information for future generations. Preserving the information found in our cemeteries is a worthwhile service with fairly simple steps.