Shared online documents

As my readers know I've been on a quest to find as many of the smaller Frederick County cemeteries as possible. My process before was to go to the cemetery, try and get the best photos I could, come home and put each cemetery in to its own folder and then rename each of the photos to the name(s) on the tombstone. I now have almost 100 cemetery folders, though many of them are not complete as they are the larger cemeteries and I was there to just confirm that the coordinates and name were correct.

After quite some time I began to realize that I needed more than just the photos so I started making spreadsheets as well. I took the names and information that I could make out from the stone and if need be crosschecked it with Names in Stone. Sometimes it's hard to find all of the names that Holdcraft found because it's in alphabetical order. If I didn't find a stone from NIS then I noted that, and if I found more stones I noted that as well.

There are some cemeteries that I'd like to find so I make a spreadsheet on those so when I do hopefully find them I know what to look for. I know that some cemeteries have been moved, the Kline family cemetery, 9A, in Wolfsville, at least two of the stones were moved to Saint Marks. Also in Wolfsville the entire Maugans family cemetery, 12A, was moved to Salem United. Three of the four stones from the Kemp family cemetery, 202, were moved to Mount Olivet.

I have created a new Google account, Catoctin.history, to store all of these documents so others can use. You can find the spreadsheets here. Please remember that these are still in a raw format. If there's no survey date then I haven't found the cemetery yet. My notes shouldn't be too hard to understand but they might be. I do not list Jr, Sr, III, or any other prefix or suffix, nor do I list husband/wife. I do try and say when two or more people are on the same stone. I also put each name as I have found it on the stone and did not try and change the name as Holdcraft sometimes did.

Each sheet is done by the Holdcraft number and then name he gave each cemetery. I have put leading 0s so that the numbers come out in order correctly. For example, the Kline family cemetery is named 009A Kline Family Cemetery. Cemeteries that Holdcraft did not catalog, and there are a few, have not been given a number and just named as best as I could.

Let me know of any problems you may find.

A better way to photograph tombstones

Have you ever come across a tombstone that's really hard to read? Ever tried to take a photo of it and tried to play with the contrast and such to try and make it better? Well, there is a better way. If you own a dSLR and a slave flash you can take far better photos as shown in this blog.

Since he's already shown you how to do it I'm going to give some examples of my photos with the different settings and show you some of the problems I've come across and how to hopefully fix them.

I normally carry with me a Nikon D40X to photograph tombstones. Recently, after reading the blog article, I bought a Sunpak flash and a Cowboy Studio flash trigger. I now carry around a tripod to hold the flash.

Here is the same stone with and without the flash. Notice how parts are readable, but with the flash it's far easier to read.

Here are some of the more common problems I've come across and how I've solved them.

Too much sun, sometimes there's just too much sun which keeps the flash from really filling in the stone. Usually that's because the sun is at my back so I also get part of my shadow in the photo as well. My solution, a large golf umbrella. The biggest problem I've had with this so far is the wind blowing the umbrella around forcing me to hold it and take the photo. The other problem is figuring out if I can carry it on the motorcycle or not. I may have to buy a light reflector instead of an umbrella.

Here's the difference:
Without the umbrella, you can see my shadow on the stone. With the umbrella, the stone isn't very readable, but still far more readable then before. Both shot at f/8 1/200.

Another problem I get is having the f-stop closed too much, or not letting in enough light. This is easy enough to spot as the photo will be very dark. Alternatively, if the photo is too bright then the f-stop is open to far. I tend to start my f-stop around 10 and go from there, since it's digital photography you'll know right away if the photo came out and make any needed changes.

On the photo on the left was done at f/4, the one one on the right at f/10.

The hardest problem to figure out is the correct distance and/or angle for the flash. If the flash is too close you will cut the corners off of the stone. If the angle is bad you will get one side of the memorial cut off. Usually pulling the flash back a foot or so will fix the problem. Other times just rotating the head of the flash will help.

Example of flash too close and of flash angled bad. The upper left side of the stone is where all the light went. Notice how much easier it is to read when the light hits at the proper angle, the light also filled in the bottom left side of the stone. Both photos taken at f/7.1 and shutter speed of 1/200.

Another problem is too fast of a shutter speed, at least if the flash can not keep up. The f-stop wasn't changed for these photos, just the shutter speed, from 1/250 to 1/200. Notice the black line on the first photo, the shutter speed was faster then the flash. Both photos taken at f/10. The one on the right was used above as well.

 

Remember, because digital photos are "free" take as many as you need. I will take 10+ of a stone playing around with different settings until I get one I like, sometimes it's best to not use the flash at all. Sometimes though the stone it so badly worn not all of the original markings will show up and you can only hope that at some point in time someone else will have transcribed the stone. Happy stone hunting.

This past weekend I made an incredible find, the Ambrose Leatherman cemetery located near Ellerton. Names in Stone said the cemetery was located along Bittle Road and MD 17. Having grown up near there I knew where to start looking. I went to the intersection and started looking and not seeing anything. I figured that someone would probably know where it was so I started going up the driveways looking for anything that resembled a graveyard. Not finding anything, nor anyone to ask, I left and made my way to Saint John's cemetery to take some photos. Luckily for me church was letting out and the one person I ran in to knew exactly where it was located.

Back I went to the proper place. I knocked on the door and the man who answered showed me right were the cemetery was. He told me that it wasn't really on his property, but no one would mind if I took some photos. He and a few others take care of the spot and it's not over grown, though I did have to remove some weeds to get nice photos.

What I found was a nice family cemetery with some interesting stones. A few types I had never seen before. Out of the 15 stones I found, at least 5 had writing on both sides, all in German. One had a flower on one side.

This is, what I'm guessing, is the back side of Peter Ambros' stone. Note the intricate flower on the bottom.

I also saw foot stones  with the initials and year of death carved on them.

This is Danial Swigart's foot stone. Upon first seeing the stone I thought it was another tombstone.

I'm still trying to compare what I have found to what Holdcraft found in 1958. I do seem to have a photo of a stone not transcribed by Holdcraft. I think there also maybe a stone or two missing. Unfortunately two of the stones were broken and I was unable to find the entire stone.