If my pictures were added to your memorial, feel free to use them as you wish. I try to fill requests.

FERNWOOD (Lansdowne, PA): My statistics as of writing this are as follows for Fernwood .....ongoing since the summer of 2019 (for 1061 grave sites): 33% of graves have a stone for your requested loved one. 50% have NO STONE at all. 17% have a stone for other people in the plot. There are A LOT of UNMARKED graves at Fernwood. I keep "stats" for this cemetery so you can understand how likely it would be for me to actually find a stone there on the gravesite. First of all, I usually fill requests for people who died before 1921/1922. The burial books for this cemetery only go up to 1921, and in some cases 1922, in the Pennsylvania and New Jersey, U.S., Church and Town Records, 1669-2013 on Ancestry.com. The best way to search for someone is to use the town of Yeadon in Delaware County, PA as the death place. As far as I am aware, you can't search directly for Fernwood on the search feature through the Ancestry.com Web site. But, if you go to the Search feature then select Card Catalog from the drop down box, you can type the name of the collection I mentioned into the keyword box. Then click on the title of the collection in the results. Scroll down on the search form to keyword again, and type Fernwood. You will see several random results. You will find some results for Fernwood, as well as a few for the Bair funeral records, etc. This is one way to get to some of the Fernwood records manually if you have trouble finding the person you want by name. I have to use the burial records that are online to figure out WHERE the grave is. If you know the location, just place that in the "plot info" field on the memorial or on your request itself as a note. So, WHY is this the case that SO MANY graves are UNMARKED? Burials started in the 1870's at Fernwood, to my knowledge. That was nearly 160 years ago! There may have been a stone on the grave at one time. It may have been damaged, maybe it crumbled and broke in half. Perhaps it is buried beneath 100 years of grass clippings. Some people never had a grave marker to begin with, anyway. Many babies and children don't have stones. When I look in sections that are newer, meaning that they started burying people in those sections more recently, it appears as though there are more stones on the graves in those sections. As I said, I usually work in the oldest sections because I can find things much easier there.

********UPDATE: Fernwood has now placed newer burial and plot info. on their Web site. This opens up new possibilities for more requests to be filled. It seems as though the number of requests have increased since the cemetery launched their burial lookup. My stats that you see above have changed a little bit since I've been able to find some recent burials, more of those have stones. However, I have not been able to keep up with my previous schedule. Cemetery visits occur a few times a year over the past year or so. In years past, I have been able to do more. Now that we have the tools to locate many of these gravesites, we need MORE VOLUNTEERS to go out and do the work! I live 25 miles from the cemetery, in another state. I'd be willing to bet that approximately half of the requests in this cemetery are initiated by able-bodied people who live about as far away as I do or CLOSER. Have you thought about maybe utilizing the Web site and the downloadable maps to see if you can find the grave? At the rate that people are requesting pictures, it might be the only way you will get your photos... if you try to do it yourself.

********UPDATE2: I have left my first entry for Fernwood as is . I wanted people to understand what my approach was for locating plots for the approximately half dozen years I was doing requests before the newer plot info. was added to the Web site for Fernwood. Also, you may find that some of your requests are single graves or burials for a couple. I believe that maybe the cemetery has split the plot in some of those cases. Other people, who may be unrelated to the deceased, could be buried in what would be the same lot number. It looks like there are different sized lots in different parts of each section, meaning that various numbers of people could potentially be buried in what would be considered a plot. Since I do not have exact plot information, I can't tell you all the names of whoever could be buried in each lot. There could be a stone on the lot for one or more people who are buried there. Maybe some people buried in the plot have no stone at all. If there is a picture of a stone that has been added to your memorial and you do not recognize the name on it, this could be why. I try to take far away plot pictures for this reason as well. Remember, I can only take pictures of what is actually there on the lot..... sometimes there was never a stone for the person whose request I did!

ST. PETER'S (Phila., PA): Inscriptions can be found in the online book, The Inscriptions in St. Peter's Church Yard: Philadelphia, by William White Bronson. This book was published in 1879. You should be able to find a downloadable pdf copy of this book on Google Books. Near the beginning you will see a map of the church yard. The author numbered the stones and their inscriptions. There is a table of contents that tells you that Section A starts on page 1, Section B starts on page 9, Section C starts on page 123, Section D starts on page 331 and Section E starts on page 521. The index is on page 569. In 2011 this book was used so that memorials could be added to Find A Grave. However, only the LEGIBLE stones were photographed at that time. If you put up a request or if I have already filled your request, you most likely CAN NOT read the stone. Many times I will take "group shots" where you might see a few stones in my photo. I do this ON PURSPOSE so you can see the stone in context. Your grave marker might be near a legible stone. That's how I figure out which stone is which. Locating things in this cemetery can be difficult. You can't read half of the markers anymore. As I said, this book was published in 1879. There have been a few burials here since, so there are a couple more stones in the yard than are in the book. For the most part, things are basically as they appear in the book, with a few other exceptions. Trees, tree roots and stumps might be in the way at this time, changing the original location of some grave markers. Portions of walkways have changed the layout a very little bit. If the burial was AFTER 1879 and it is NOT in the book, I don't always know WHERE exactly to find the stone, if there is one at all******

In 1981, an article entitled "Philadelphia Gravestones 1760-1820", was written by Elizabeth A. Crowell (found on the Web site academia.edu). St. Peter's was one of the church yards on which she based her case study. Crowell stated that,

"The majority of the stones are manufactured of marble quarried from a limestone belt in Montgomery and Chester counties in Pennsylvania. Because of the high limestone content, the marble has a very sandy consistency. The extreme friability of the stone, enhanced by the corrosive agents in air pollution, causes layers of stone to separate and disintegrate, making inscriptions illegible."

Suggested citation for Crowell article:

Crowell, Elizabeth A. (1981) "Philadelphia Gravestones 1760-1820," Northeast Historical Archaeology: Vol. 10 10, Article 3. htps://doi.org/10.22191/neha/vol10/iss1/3 Available at: htp://orb.binghamton.edu/neha/vol10/iss1/3

HOLY CROSS, (Yeadon, PA)- There were some photos already on this site from section Z before I photographed mostly all of the remaining stones in that section. Keep in mind that I was only able to take pictures of what was there. Other people whose names are not on the stones may be buried in the plots with those whose names are on the grave markers. There were also unmarked graves throughout section Z. I most likely did not add any photos to memorials where the grave was unmarked, as I was not aware of who was buried there.

UPPER BURIAL GROUND or AX (in Germantown, Phila., PA)- Some graves, mostly military, were already photographed before I arrived there. Thanks to the earlier survey of the grave yard in 1959, I was able to figure out which stone was for which person. The stones seem to be almost exactly where they were since the survey was taken. There were a few grave markers in the middle of the cemetery that appear to have been moved. A few along the stone wall seem to have disappeared. Some near the front steps are leaning on one another. Just because the stones seem to be where they are supposed to be, it doesn't mean that you can actually read the writing on the markers in my pictures on the memorials. The survey, including inscriptions (brief), can be found in the Concord School House at the burial ground. The gates are usually locked, so the burial yard can only be accessed on certain holidays and on certain Saturdays during the year. Visit the Web site for more information. https://www.concordschoolhouse.org/

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