Autumn Cemetery Color Tours
Alright, leaf-peepers, ready for a road trip!? Autumn cemetery color tours are one of the best ways to enjoy the season’s brilliant leaves. This blog post is a great way to discover some US cemeteries you can enjoy as you take gravestone photos. Fall is…
Grave Robbers in the Victorian Era
Grave robbers were a common problem in Victorian-era cemeteries. They stole everything from rings and necklaces to the bodies themselves. “Rest in Peace” is a common epitaph on older gravestones but this wasn’t just a trite phrase in the 1800s. Family members were genuinely concerned…
Victorian Mourning Clothes
Victorian mourning clothes may have been hanging in your ancestor’s closet during the 1800s – a black dress with a high neck, black leather button-up shoes, a black top hat, and more. And when death brought those black clothes out of storage, your ancestors may…
10 Victorian Cemetery Traditions
Victorian cemetery traditions were very intimate. Funerals were often held in the home and mourning periods lasted for decades. Today, death is more removed from everyday life. Most people spend their final days in a hospital or nursing home. If someone does die at home,…
Burial Customs from Around the World
Burial customs from around the world provide an important link to our ancestors. They are physical evidence of a society’s spiritual beliefs, sometimes dating back thousands of years. Most people believe that their ancestor’s spirits journey to an afterlife but what their families do to…
Winged Skull Gravestone Symbols
Winged skull gravestone symbols were common in 18th-century cemeteries. While they may look strange to us today – even morbid or creepy – they held important meaning for our ancestors. Death was a frequent visitor to households in the 1700s. In many areas, it was…
