05 September 2015

Busy summer and cemetery differences

It's been a rather busy summer, with vacations and not getting out as much as I would have liked. I did take photos of a couple of cemeteries, and redid one cemetery completely so the stones were more readable. What I haven't done is gone and looked for the family cemeteries as by now they will be over grown and harder to find.

One trip I made was to Ireland. I have a good friend that lives there which makes for a nice, easy place to go. As I had some time to myself, and I came across a few cemeteries I decided to take some photos and put them on Find a Grave. Little did I know that just finding the proper cemeteries on FAG would be so difficult, as in I still haven't been able to find the proper places yet.

I did however, notice some striking differences in cemeteries and tombstones between the US and Ireland. In Ireland, and from a lot of the rest of Europe that I've seen, the cemeteries have walls surrounding the plot. In some places they will cover the plot with stones while others leave the grass to grow. Both of the photos below are from the same cemetery on Achill Island in county Mayo.




















The photo below I took when I was in Latvia in 2014. The stone lists only the surname, but is a family plot, something I also saw in Ireland. 
Latvian family plot
Some of the plots I saw in Ireland were quite complex. I am having a hard time figuring out the entire family line in this photo.


















While it will take me some time to figure out where these cemeteries are, at least there are some beautiful views to be had.
Achill Island