F.A.G.

My account for update my Find a Grave info

F.A.G. is the acronym for Find a Grave.  Find a Grave is a website that was originally started to identify burial places of famous people, (usually movie stars).

I discovered Find a Grave through a tip from my cousin Tim Tipton who, like me, made numerous trips to graveyards searching for information on our common ancestors.  Tim told me that I could go to the Find a Grave website and probably find a lot of information about our ancestors.

I went, I saw and I was hooked!  Over the years I had taken many pictures of graves and their headstones.  Now I had a place to put them.  I joined the Find a Grave community (which ironically has the acronym of FAG - oh the irony since I am gay) to share my information and also to fulfill photo requests.  Many a time Bill and I searched and visited nearby graveyards to fulfill a photo request for a far flung relative or friend of the deceased.

Me at my great-grandfather's grave in Limestone, Tennessee

Since joining Find a Grave, I have made many friends in the FAG community, most of whom are straight (again, the irony).  Like my genealogy research, sometimes I'm hot and heavy into it and then sometimes I take months off and do nothing because I'm caught up in other aspects of my life in "retirement".  More irony, I have never been busier in my life than I have in my retirement but I've also never been happier.  No irony there, just contentment and happiness and much to look forward to each day that I wake up and see the morning light.

Over the past two years I have taken hundreds of photos of grave headstones that I haven't posted to FAG. A couple of weeks ago when I was fulfilling another photo request for a FAG member, I noticed that I now have competition down here in Lower Slower Delaware for Find a Grave contributors.  In fact, I have discovered that someone else is posting pictures they have taken of gravestones!  I have dallied too long.  So for the next couple of months, I'm going to try and post my backlog of pictures to Find a Grave.com.  I may not have as many blog postings so if you're all wondering what happen to Ron, it is just that I am shifting priorities.  Just so many hours in this retiree's days.

Before I leave, one more irony.  About a year into my membership of Find a Grave I discovered who founded Find a Grave.  It is a man by the name of :

JIM TIPTON.  

Jim Tipton, Find a Grave Founder

Searching For Gravestones In Cemeteries

A few weeks ago, my distant cousin (Tim Tipton), and fellow genealogist researcher called me to inform me that he was finding more Tipton headstones in cemeteries in North Carolina and Tennessee. For many years I have searched cemeteries for records of my ancestors. I've taken many pictures of their headstones. Tim has been posting his photos and information to the Find A Grave.com website. Ironically, this web site was founded by another Tipton, a Jim Tipton. There must be something in the Tipton gene that pulls us towards exploring cemeteries. Through Tim Tipton and another fellow Tipton researcher, Paul Tipton of California I discovered Find a Grave.com. Now I am posting my own cemetery photos to this web site. From my location here in the southern most county of Delaware, Sussex County, I had determined that most of the cemeteries in my area are unrecorded on Find a Grave.com. Thus, I have another "hobby." It's more like a passion. The extra dividend this pays is that I can also look for cemeteries and take photo requests for friends and relatives who live far away and cannot visit the final resting places of their loved ones. Below is the text of an e-mail that I recently sent to a fellow Find A Grave.com member who is going to take photos of the final resting places of my partner. His Mother and Father are buried in the Toccoa City Cemetery located in Toccoa, Georgia. All of us who are posting to Find a Grave.com are volunteers. It is heartening to know that there are so many volunteers who are willing take their own time to help bring peace to distant relatives of the deceased. This has really been an excellent week. We have elected a president that gives us new hope for a better future. Barack Obama has promised to end the divisiveness that has poisoned this country for far too long. The world has shown by its joyous reaction to the election of Barack Obama that we're on the way to be respected again in the world community. It is indeed heartening to me to know that there are still unselfish people in the world who are willing to help and make life better for all of us. It is a good feeling. Below is the text of my e-mail to my fellow photo volunteer:

Ron,

At first I put graves on findagrave, but I do so many hundreds of photos for myself and everybody else I know, I could not live long enough to post them all on findagrave. So I just e-mail the photos to the people that request them and ask them to post on findagrave. I wish I had time to do my own. Some of my "cousins" and I have several private family web sites, and I post all my photos on there. There are several people I have met on findagrave that I take pictures of any of their family names I find when I'm out and about - and I'm out and about EVERYWHERE in about a 50 mile radius, so you never know what you might run up on. And invariably some of the ones I find are people in their family they never knew existed. So it's a lot of fun, and I enjoy it - it's really the only serious hobby I have.

Anyway, I just took my dogs out - and it's raining! But maybe it will clear over the week-end so I can get the photos.

Pat

Pat,

Guess what? This morning I found two of the three photo requests that I had from Find A Grave.com. I am so happy that I found them. These are my firsts photo requests. This is the fourth time I've been to the St. Johnstown Cemetery in Greenwood, Delaware. I recently retired to Delaware (November 2006) from Pennsylvania. I'm still learning my way around down here. I've never been to this cemetery. It was an adventure for me to go to that part of the state for the first time. This is a learning experience, fulfilling photo requests for grave sites. I thought I would find the cemetery and, viola! There would be the grave. Nope. It didn't work that way. My first visit, it was so cold and windy (big time wind down here on the flat plains of seaside coastal Delaware) that I could hardly stand it. I returned and couldn't find the graves that I was looking for (Lester Cleaves, Matthew Faulkner, and Lonnie McAdams.) Finally, I called the church pastor. She didn't know where they were buried (it's a large church graveyard - very pretty) and she advised me to call the man who actually buried the decedents. I called him and he told me the location of Mr. Cleaves who, as I suspected, didn't have a headstone yet (from his picture, he looks like he comes from very humble circumstances). I couldn't find them on the third visit. After receiving your e-mails last night, I decided to give it another push. This morning I made the trip again under cloudy skies. The skies threatened rain. However, I was determined to find Mr. Cleaves' final resting place. I have the print out of his picture looking at me whenever I'm at my computer. It makes me feel guilty that I haven't found him yet. Well, this morning, about the third grave site I checked, there he was! Some plastic flowers, and a little plastic covered market with Mr. Cleaves visage starring at me. I found him! Quickly, I took a picture before the rains began to fall. Below is Mr. Cleaves.


Now I was on a mission. I wanted to find the other two photo requests. One was for a one and a half year old baby named Matthew James "Matt" Faulkner. His smiling, sweet little face also looks at me (it's on a print out I have clipped to my clipboard near my computer) every day when I'm on the computer. I was convinced that this baby was at the big Faulkner headstone with all the plastic flowers. However, I couldn't find a place marking for him. I was looking for one of those plastic ones since he only died this year. Well, this morning I found him. He was located away from the family Faulkner headstones and by himself. The photo of his grave site is below:

Coincidentally, his final resting place was very near Mr. Cleaves' grave. I quickly took this picture and then began looking for my last photo request for the grave sit of Lonnie McAdams. However, the rain really started to fall now, so I had to leave. I will return when the weather is more accommodating. One thing about searching and exploring cemeteries, you know they are not going anywhere.

A New Passion

Here I am pictured at my grave site at the Northwood Cemetery in Downingtown, Pennsylvania. All I need now is a headstone. I haven't decided yet on what I want for my permanent memorial. I do know that I want something unique for my counterpart next century who will be researching me. Yep, my new passion (actually an old one that I've revived) is cemetery trolling. I don't know why, but I've always enjoyed walking through a cemetery (preferably on a nice sunny day - not at night) and reading headstones. I can't explain it, but I feel a sense of completeness when I read the headstones and wonder about the people below and their history, their life. I first started exploring cemeteries looking for dates to back up my genealogical research. However, I soon discovered a relaxing karma (no better way to explain it), as I walked and communed with the departed. Recently I discovered a web site devoted entirely to graves called Find A Grave.com. How ironic to discover that the man who started this web site was also a Tipton. Jim Tipton is his name. I haven't contacted him yet but I will. I think his interest is more in finding graves of famous people, which is find. That is also interesting. My focus right now is finding and recording as many graves of my ancestors as I can in my remaining lifetime. Oh how I wish I had started doing my family research when I was younger. However, it was much more difficult then without the advent of the Internet. The Internet has opened up so many more avenues of information that it almost overwhelms me. But that is good. I firmly believe everyone must have a passion in life. Mine is my family research and recording as much of that information as I can before I depart from this planet. Even though I'm getting a lot of my information from the Internet and other Tipton researchers, nothing replaces the "in person" visit. Visiting distant relatives and recording their verbal history before it is lost. Also, if I'm lucky, those distant relatives will have pictures of our common ancestors. That's how I found the picture of my great grandfather Hiram Tipton. I had never seen a picture of him before. What a thrill that was seeing it for the first time. I look forward to my remaining days knowing that I have so much history to uncover. I'm not a religious person but sometimes I do think a greater power put me on this path. Just maybe.

Find A Grave.com

My distant cousin (our great-great-great-fathers were brothers) TimTipton has a passion. He searches for Tipton graves to take pictures for his book he hopes to publish in the future. For many years I have also trolled through cemeteries in search of my Tipton ancestors. I have also search for my maternal ancestors, the Hadfields and Hickmans. Over the years I have accumulated a many pictures. I have also discovered facts that surprised me. For instance, I found my maternal great-great grandfather and grandmother's graves less than a mile from my Pennsylvania home. If I hadn't began my grave search, I would never have known this Find A Grave.com. Finding this web site is like finding a chest of treasure at the end of the rainbow. Yes, I admit it. I am weird. Hey, another good friend, Larry Meredith also like to troll through cemeteries. Larry and I have made several such expeditions in the past. Now here is the best part. This morning I was reading the background information on Find a Grave.com. Much to my surprise I read that a fellow Tipton founded this website. His name is Jim Tipton. Now my question is to my friends Tim and Larry, why didn't we think of this?