Talk:United States Cemeteries

Individual Cemetery Pages
I guess I will be the first to start this discussion and hope that someone else contributes. Should there be individual pages for cemeteries? I was compiling information for cemeteries in a county and there were so many cemeteries and so much information on each that it seemed absurd to keep it all on the main page. Any ideas? Gregorybean 15:45, 6 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Good morning, Gregory. You're absolutely right! The general guideline is if any page gets too big, then it needs to be divided. So if there is that much information available on the cemeteries of a county, perhaps the county page should contain a brief description of cemeteries for that county and then a separate page be created for each cemetery, with links back to the county page. We're not talking about an abstract of all the names of people buried in the cemeteries, are we. That is not the purpose of FamilySearch Wiki. The purpose of this Wiki is to describe such lists and provide links to them, but not to place the database on our site. What county and state are we talking about?Jbparker 16:00, 6 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I am working on Virginia right now, but I think that every county will experience the same thing. I think that when people begin to list cemeteries, they should list each as a hyperlink to a new page. Even if they do not create it, it may encourage someone else who knows about the cemetery to build the page. See Queen Anne's County, Maryland and Alleghany County, Virginia for examples. Gregorybean 07:52, 7 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I really like your approach. As these cemetery pages are established, information about the history of the cemetery (first burials there, whether or not it is a currently-used cemetery, affiliation to city, family, church, lodge, etc., and GPS coordinates would all be very helpful. Incidentally, the same approach will need to be taken for churches in each county. Obviously, this is a very large and long-range project, but one which be invaluable to a researcher. And it's something that could well encourage contributions by local individuals, historical societies, etc. I've taken a little bit different approach in Idaho (see Bannock County, Idaho as an example), but I think I will adapt to your approach, as time permits. Jbparker 14:01, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I have been creating these pages with the cemetery name and then the jurisdiction afterward. I do this because there are so many cemeteries with the same name, many will undoubtedly need that specification to distinguish between cemeteries (i.e. Mount Pleasant Cemetery). Additionally, it makes it easy to quickly see in what jurisdiction a cemetery is located. Unfortunately, when you pile all of these cemeteries into a category (click Category:Cemeteries in Virginia below) it looks chunky. Is this a good way of doing these pages? Or should I only distinguish as it becomes pertinent?


 * Gregory, I really like the pages you have created and what you are including in them. As far as the category is concerned, I really think that is the best way to categorize these pages right now. Wiki is still evolving and I've heard that categories may change, but that shouldn't stop you from doing what you are doing. If they do change the way the categories work, they will have to deal with globally changing all that have been created, because there are thousands of categories. As far as including the jurisdictions after the cemetery name, that is exactly how I do the hundreds of Indian pages I have created. (See Category:American_Indian_Reservations or Category:American_Indian_Agencies as examples.) In the case of the Indian pages, it is important to at least identify the state in which the reservation or office is located, just as it is with cemeteries. There is another way to handle many cemeteries with the same name, and that is through disambiguation pages, but Ithink that is more "clunky"  (great descriptive word, by the way) than the way you are doing it.Jbparker 18:20, 13 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I can think of the worst nighmare using Gregory's approach. St. Mary's Cemetery with 882 identified with variant names changing over the time. In one county in New York, there are 5 of them, that means town level. That is why I opted for placing cemeteries under town level whereever possible instead of the county level/state level. BTW, There's 390 Mount Pleasant Cemetery's in USA along with their variant names as known to different people, not counting who know how many more outside the USA as well as more not reported to the USGS Geographic Service. Gregory, you need to think through how it affects overall.dsammy 08:26, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Format for Cemetery Pages
I am beginning to develop pages for different jurisdictions that list each individual cemetery in that jurisdiction. I know that this has been done elsewhere but it has been done in a variety of fashions.

The biggest question for me is headings. Should each cemetery be under an individual heading (see Syracuse, New York Cemeteries)? Or should they be listed as simple text with no headings (see James City County, Virginia Cemeteries)? I would like to get a feel for what people think before I start getting really involved. Thanks. --Gregorybean 04:01, 25 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Which headings are you referring to? With large number of cemeteries, you would want to have a TOC which is generated from making the names of cemeteries in headings. James City County version, you're forcing the researcher to scroll down to get to specific cemetery. These days, the research by Internet, is running on time limits. No TOCs, lose interest, and off to next county or city whatever it may be. This is noted in The USGenWeb Project's experience already. The researchers aren't going to take time scrolling anymore. dsammy 06:30, 25 October 2009 (UTC)