I was born Crystal Ann Hands. My father was Kenneth William Hands.

Foley is our mother's second husband's surname.

Both sides of my family, (from the early to mid-1800's on my maternal side and the late 1800's to early 1900's on my paternal side) hail primarily from the thumb area of Michigan and lived/live within the counties of Sanilac, St Clair, Saginaw, Gratiot, Genesee, Lapeer, and Antrim. Both sides came to the US via a route through the upper northeastern states and into Ontario, Canada where family relatives still live today, many in Owen Sound.

My paternal family line includes the surnames:

Hands - Burkholder - Brown - Smith - Burley - Walker - Allen - Otis - Wilcox - Houghton - Stinson - Dupont - Cordell - McKee - Hooker - Hartwell ... and more.

My maternal line includes:

Sheldon - Warner - Finn - Hykes - Teachout - Mortimer - Maxwell - Craig - Wixson - Reeves - Schenick - Sorter - Boyle - Townsend - Randall - Smith ... and more.

My newly-found maternal grandfather's line includes:

Moore - Newell - Nesbitt - Farquar - McGrath - Haisley - Lindsay - Storey - ... and more.

Additional family surnames include:

Wortley - Swain - Ironside - Rich - Schott - Sutton - Bond - Miller - Edman - Scott - St John - Breen - Forbes - Spring - Hooey - Mills - Youmans - Ricker - Donley - Hardacre - Harrington - Halstead - Moir ... and more.

MEMORIALS I MANAGE:

Thus far, the majority of the few memorials I currently manage are family.

NON-FAMILY MEMORIALS I MANAGE:

Those memorials I manage that are not family I've either created or stumbled upon while working on my own family line and then subsequently became sidetracked on researching, completing, and connecting them to their own families. This usually starts out with discovering an unconnected child's memorial being managed by Find A Grave, sometimes finding their parent in the same cemetery plot who's memorial is also under the care of FG, and then acquiring the memorials in order to work on them.

Whether created or acquired, these memorials are not "Mine".

Memorials are created with the purpose of honoring the person they are created for. They are created to share the memory of that person with family, friends, and descendants. Viewing and treating memorials as personal property and acquisitions, withholding them from family who request to manage them, amassing and retaining them in collections of tens of thousands while leaving them to languish, forgotten, incomplete, often unconnected to family and uncared for, honors and benefits no one.

• Therefore, I will transfer memorials outside of FG guidelines to extended family and friends ... with the understanding, when transferring to friends, that the memorials be transferred on to family when requested.

• I will not transfer in bulk. I will not transfer to individuals who have or are amassing collections and hoarding other families' memorials, unless the transfer falls within FG guidelines.

• Please include your family connection and your FG ID# when requesting transfers.

PHOTOS:

Any and all photos I add to memorials may be freely downloaded, shared to other sites, and used for any purpose other than commercial usage or financial gain. This applies to my personal family photos as well as to all photos of headstones, markers, gravesites, cemeteries, and etc, that I add to memorials.

• The only thing I ask is that the information I share with each individual photo goes with that photo so that the information reshared with each photo is complete and accurate.

Sharing photos is a manner of honoring our family and friends who've passed on before us, of sharing our love and joy and memories of our lost loved ones with others of that person's family, friends, descendants, and community. The more family, friends, and descendants acquire these photos and share them or pass them down through subsequent generations, the longer our loved ones' memories live on.

ADDING SIMILAR 'GRAVE' PHOTOS TO MEMORIALS that already have a photo:

I support this.

When a clearer photo can be obtained, when changes occur to markers and headstones, when you've gone to the work of digging a marker out rather than just photographing it half consumed by dirt and grass, when you've trimmed the grass and cleaned up around a marker or headstone before taking a photo, when you've cleaned a marker or headstone, when you've taken the time to obtain a better photo in better weather conditions under better lighting, when you've put in the effort to obtain photos that include the grounds surrounding the grave, when you can provide information with those photos as to what other potential family members may be buried alongside the person's marker you are photographing - Thank you!

Please do add those photos to the memorials. I greatly welcome them.

When I am able to fulfill requests I put in effort to get the best photos possible, to go out in summer or fall weather under good lighting and weather conditions, to clean up the area and dig out markers first as I'm able, to include photos of the area around the gravesite and of the cemetery, to document potential family buried with or next to them, and to provide info with the photos as to their general location within the cemetery. I greatly appreciate people who do the same when fulfilling requests as it provides family who are unable to travel the ability to have a 'virtual visit' at their loved one's gravesite, helps people who are visiting the cemetery locate their family, and it helps document the cemetery itself, noting conditions and changes that occur through the years.

OBITUARIES, NEWS ARTICLES, DOCUMENTS:

I welcome any of the above being added to memorials.

Information typed into memorials in the Bio section provides for no verification of the information's accuracy, the above items do (not that all of the info in them are always correct). These items are a part of our public history and they help document a person's lived life. It does help to include sources when adding these items to memorials.

Missing Michigan ... Croswell, Port Huron, Lexington, Carsonville, and my surrounding old haunts, the free and happy times I spent there, and my dear family and friends there who've since passed.

All the best to all ~

Crystal