July 2007

• I traveled 3400 miles by car to search for 5 out of state governors.  Kellogg (Virginia), Shepley (Maine) and Wickliffe (Kentucky) were found.  Baker (Connecticut) and Robertson (West Virginia) are still missing.  See the Governors section for more details.

• 38 deceased governors have been visited.  Their cemetery, memorial or headstone pictures are posted on this site. 

• There are ten governors yet to visit or find.

May 2006

• Lafayette becomes our 32nd parish of cemeteries.

April 2006

• St. Landry is our 31st parish of cemeteries.  It is presented in a rough form.  You can see what we start with.  It presently lists 102 cemeteries but a full search has not yet been done, so there will be many more later.  We now list 2923 cemeteries of Louisiana.

• Several hundred pictures of East Baton Rouge Cemeteries were added .

• Many pictures were added for Ascension Catholic Cemetery in Ascension parish.

• Pictures were added to four more cemeteries following a trip to Prairieville, Dutchtown and Geismar in Ascension Parish.

• Pictures were added for a number of cemeteries in St. Charles Parish.

• Completed page 1 of the Tangipahoa Parish Cemetery pages.  Page 2 is active with road maps being added.  Pages 3 & 4 need aerial views and road maps.

3/25/6

• Evangeline parish now has aerial views of all located cemeteries.  Aerial views are being added in Tangipahoa.  Our 31st parish will be St. Landry, which is shown in dark blue on the Louisiana map.

3/13/6

• A drop down selection list for parishes was added to each cemetery page.  The hyperlink bar was changed to a more concise format. A parish links page was added.

2/4/6

• Caddo  - We are still incorporating data from Mr. John Head and Joseph Slattery into Caddo Parish Cemeteries.  The end is in sight.

• Evangeline - Our 30th parish is Evangeline.  Under construction, but viewable now.  All the cemeteries are listed together with available  tombstone transcription lists.  

1/28/6

• Parishes now total 29.  Our goal for the 1st qtr 2006 is 32 parishes out of Louisiana's 64.  There is no resting going on here!
• Caddo - Aerial views and road maps are compete.  Now incorporating data for many additional cemeteries graciously sent to us by Mr. John Head and Mr. Joseph Slattery.
• Tangipahoa  - Usable now.  Cemetery hunt was under way, but now in limbo until Caddo is complete.
• Washington - Usable now but Identifying unknown cemeteries is on hold.  Lots and lots of work left.

1/22/06

This Times Picayune article details damage to south La. cemeteries due to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Blogg....December 16, 2005

BACKWARDS PROGRESS...    I could see the light at the end of the Caddo tunnel when I installed a new version of my mapping software.  I'm old enough to know better.  That installation has brought the preparation of aerial views to a halt.  The newer version of mapping software lost functionality and all my notes for 3000+ cemeteries disappeared from it.  Plus I can't add the cemetery name to the aerial view now.  Progress?

Anyway, the maker has issued one revision to try to fix that but he didn't quite grasp the significance of the problem and that fix only partially helped.  He's back at his design table and says it'll be fixed in a version to be released this week.  In the meantime I put Caddo on the shelf and moved to St. Tammany where there are plenty of road maps to add.

REAL WORK    A month or so ago I started a job in St. Bernard parish at a refinery that flooded.  The devastation I see on the trip too and fro through ByWater, 9th ward, Arabi and Chalmette is truly not describable.   I pass many cemeteries, but in the dark both ways.  Soon I hope to make a day trip and get some cemetery pictures. 

STATUS    Now well over 3,000 cemeteries in 29 parishes and still finding more.  The ugly grunt work of creating web ready aerial views and road maps is hampering faster progress.

Recent cemetery visits have included picture taking.  Many photos have been added to the tables, in Iberville, Ascension, Red River and some other parishes. I recently misplaced 100 pictures from 12 cemeteries after a days work somewhere on my giant hard disc.  At least I hope they're still there somewhere and hopefully will arise at some point.

One cemetery, that has been vandalized, has an old metal coffin pulled from the grave. 

Click to enlarge.

Sadly, many graves in numerous cemeteries are on the verge of completely disappearing in 1 to 10 years or less.  Those doing transcriptions are the only salvation for this source of our genealogical history.

October, 2005

HURRICANES    With 2005 Hurricanes Katrina and then Rita, many south Louisiana cemeteries suffered significant damage from the rising waters and winds.  It appears that some Plaquemine Parish cemeteries are now lost to us forever from the permanent flooding and damage of Hurricane Katrina.  We expect others in coastal parishes to be lost also due to permanent inundation from Hurricane Rita. 

Many other cemeteries across Louisiana suffered the indignity of floating tombs and coffins, often found miles from their original sites.  Many will not be found for years. The opportunity to have documented the deceased from headstones is lost forever in many cases.