Cemeteries - A Necessity!

Trevat Cemetery in Trevat, Trinity County, Texas

My husband thinks there must be something wrong with me because I visit so many cemeteries with a backpack stocked with camera, notepad, water, bug repellent, people repellent (Mace), walking stick (useful for many things), and requests from other genealogists for photos.  He is not too happy with this pastime but has given up trying to persuade me otherwise and sometimes I go to a location and I don't need any persuasion to leave.  I am a photo volunteer for Find A Grave website and some of these cemeteries are in strange, isolated locations with questionable surroundings.   I love the ones that are fenced (don't have to worry so much about dogs)!  I have been pretty lucky in locating the cemeteries and so far none of them have been so huge that I had to walk forever to try and locate the grave - sometimes there is no office or map of the cemetery.  My goal is to photograph the requested tombstone first and any others with the same surname.  After that I photograph as many tombstones as I have time for but I lean toward photographing the interesting and unusual ones as well as the older ones and children's.  I find that the children are important to photograph because they may not show up in a census (if they were born and died between censuses) or maybe it was before birth and death records were required and a family may not even know about them.  Even after laws required recording these vital records, it wasn't always done.  I have been trying to find the parents of one of my great grandfathers for years.  He died in 1914 (recording deaths were required beginning in 1903) & I can find no record or obituary on him.  He had a large family and I can find all of them, so guess somebody dropped the ball on this one.  I have to wonder if I am the only one who stands beside the grave of an ancestor and wishes they would just talk to me and answer my questions!

Here I am listing a few of the cemeteries of my ancestors and my husband's - some I have visited and others were researched or photographed by family members and others. I grew up in East Texas and do not live in that area anymore but visit often.  If anyone is familiar with any of these cemeteries and has requests or questions, please contact me and I will do what I can to help.

Colfax Cemetery - Colfax, Van Zandt, Texas
Grace Hill Cemetery - Longview, Gregg, Texas
Greenwood Cemetery - Longview, Gregg, Texas
Marvin Chapel Cemetery - Van Zandt County, Texas

New York Cemetery - New York, Henderson, Texas

Rose Hill Cemetery - Tyler, Smith, Texas

Trevat Cemetery - Trevat, Trinity, Texas
Tyler Memorial Park and Cemetery - Tyler, Smith, Texas
Union Chapel Cemetery - Garden Valley, Smith, Texas