Best practices for reading old headstones and ensure they are preserved for generations to come. Tip Jar: www.paypal.me/rwrightphotography Follow me on my old farm: ru-vid.com/show-UC56vh2L-M0czmoTRLhSMaxg eBay Shop: www.ebay.com/usr/oldbyrdfarm Join The Official Sidestep Adventures Fan Group: facebook.com/groups/561758371276581/?ref=share_group_link Support us on Patreon: Patreon.com/SidestepAdventures My flashlight link: www.olightstore.com/s/UPTJSG Save 10 percent: SAIH10 (not valid on sales items and X9R) Mail: Sidestep Adventures PO BOX 206 Waverly Hall, Georgia 31831
There is such a thing as above-ground archeology and tombstones have to fall into that study. You are keeping true history alive in an informative, educational, and fun way (when you drag the other Robert through poison ivy).
Rubbings for creative art was popular in the 70's, & I wondered why I never heard more about that. Thank-you for including that information. Now I know.
Excellent guide!!! This really needs to run on your fb page. A short video of do's and don'ts cleaning and explain D2 would be great too. Encountered so many people using clorox and want to use power washer.👍👍❣️
I have never heard of flour, or shaving cream or honestly any of those except rubbings and I didn’t know that could damage it. I have thought of doing that but never have. Good to have he explanation. I always thought there couldn’t possibly be anyone other than me who’d want to do that.
Another way to use light is to use a mirror (or foil affixed to something flat) to reflect the sun’s light onto the stone. The mirror method works nearly identically to the flashlight method. I’ve been to a number of cemetery preservation events & I always get looks when I bring out the mirror I carry with me. They’re always shocked at how well it works.
Thank you for doing this video. I cringe when I see some people's suggestions and hope to all things good the people suggesting are taught how harming they are.
Ya know your video needs to be posted at every freaking cemetery there is..I actually encountered a person who was doing a chalk rubbing and said something ever so nice about that being bad for the stone and got looked at like wth do you think you are. Being a semi genealogist I know how important conservation is.. I did learn something from you and that was the use of a good flashlight and I thank you.
Thanks for this valuable information! Sure wish cemeteries would also add a 'wall' with names and dates. Similar to the traveling Vietnam war one. This would help visitors in several ways. To preserve the names that have or endanger of eroding away forever. And to help visitors doing family research to confirm once entering the cemetery, that their long lost loved ones are actually buried there.
Now Robert…whatever type of flashlight you used in this vid worked great. I could read the stones even tho you didn’t read them off to us this time. Don’t forget that flashlight for the next video 😂. You’ve got that bad. “I forgot the flashlight” 😅
Here's a few things to consider. One of my online friends did what you said not to do with chalk. He did what you said with a light but still couldn't read it. So he used chalk and was able to read the stone. He was also told not to do this at first by the graveyard attendants at the church but they had no idea who these graves belonged to so they agreed to let him do these things because they valued learning who these people were to document them as being more important than preserving the stone. While I agree people should do no harm, your advice seems to be to let it go which means if the stone is deteriorated already and people can't learn what the stones say, just leaving them for the future as you state at the end means leaving them to be unknowns as the stones further weather. At the cemetery where most of my mothers family are buried, there's a newer part and an older part with the older part going back to pre Civil War and many of those graves were lost in relation to who was bruied there because they went through a period of decades where they just allowed the older part of the cemetery to grow up and be unattended. They began a recovery program where older members of the church told them that many of the graves originally had marked stones but that the stones had become so damaged and worn they couldn't be easily read and no one remembered who was buried there. So, the recovery program began all methods to try learning what they could from the stones destroying some as you said... but then replacing them with new stones with the information gathers. The ones they couldn't were lost for good but they were already slack, flaked and broken so badly they would never be read. It even turned out an old timer had written down someo of the names of people in his family when he was a kid and found that document in the ruins of an old house he lived in when he was young and some of the graves were identified with this. Many people just want to get the names and information but, and this is the point of my response, at least this creates records of who is there while those records can be gathered and anyway to do that is better than letting it further deteriorate so that future generations can't learn anything. Think about all the graves you've happened upon that are so far gone you can't read them even with the lights and ways you say are better because they've already become too worn. Yet, maybe a decade ago someone did come through when the stones could still be read and they made rubbings and got the information which they still have. Yes, it can be destructive to the stones but they got the information and that's the important part as it was important to put that information on the stones and important to preserve it. I've watched your show for a while now and notice your disappointment when you find stones you can't read. You're disappointed because that information is now lost. While the stone is important for the sake of history, the history is actually the information on the stone and getting with people who may have come through earlier and making graphs where the graves are and the information on the stones is actually far more important than preserving the stone. You may disagree but preserving the stone means nothing if the information on that stone becomes lost. Maybe the ways of gathering the information are destructive such as the flour you mentioned. But, when organic material grows on the stone and in those cracks, it has the same effect. When my mothers family cemetery finally determined to reclaim what their predecessors allowed to become lost, they didn't care one ounce about the stone because the stone was unimportant... it was remembering the peopl,e the stones marked and commemorated that was important so they used every method they could to find out the information including digging which found stones that had fallen over and no one even remembered existed because they had never seen them and they even considered inviting in amateur coroners and archaeologists to dig up the graves they weren't finding information on to at least learn if the people were male, female, old young or maybe if there was something surviving on the remains stating who they were. But they eventually abandoned that idea although some still support it. Once this information is lost, future generations will be just as disappointed as yourself when they find the stones now too eroded to read... but you were there when they were legible and while you read and recorded some, you leave a lot behind because you just don't have the time or don't want to risk damaging the stones further when maybe you're the right man at the right time to be last in line to save that information and these destructive processes you say don't use are the only ways to gain the knowledge. A stone is a stone and might be valued because of the carvings and style... but it's the information on the stone that matters more than the stone ever has or ever will. The stone is often only created to preserve the information and the memories of this person and when it's gone, it's lost forever.
What you have described are special circumstances, and stones that are already deteriorated. My advice is not to let it go, but using best practices in reading headstones such as the ones I showed.
Wow, very interesting video. I wouldn't want to damage a headstone. Lot of these methods you mentioned I've heard of & I guess some people might do them. They should listen to this to make them aware they could damage the stone. I just love the headstones they had a long time ago. Very intriguing to me maybe I'm weird as my family would tell me.
Hi Robert! I love your videos.There is an old Crockett family cemetery in TN ( I don’t want to reveal the location online) that I would love to see on your video. I believe they are kin to Davey Crockett. My cousin has the property next to it and she and her husband have been maintaining it.
Pleases see about placing a fitting plexiglass over that slab you just shown so the rain don’t do more damage to the information on the slab. It’s a preservation project and that real old stone you couldn’t read at all needs the same preservation work done to it for the same reason and done asap
Robert, what about the filming in a cemetery showing all the stones, reading them, commenting on them. Is there any certain do/don'ts of this? Of course don't make negative remarks about the person at rest, just curious. I'd like to do a short vid of the cemetery in my hometown, but of course everyone knows me, and I know them. I think I'll just keep it out of this cemetery. Thanks. Melanie
I was also looking online and ran across the suggestion that a mirror could be used similar to the flashlight. There was also one showing them using tinfoil to wrap the stone and then they to lightly passed a very soft brush similar to a makeup brush or very soft chalkboard eraser across the tinfoil. It did bring the features up, but it has to be done very lightly, then take a photo of the tinfoil as it probably would not retain the impression long. What do you think of that idea. I have bought some D/2 to use on my parents grave site and will hopefully get to use it soon. Have watched your videos and also the Wisconsin Historical Society's RU-vid videos that also explain how it should be used. Thanks for the lessons.
Is there some way that after reading or deciphering the headstone that what could be read today is left behind for the future, when the stone will be even less readable?
Now I really want to know what last tombstone read. I can’t make it all out. Looks like the first line is This is…I can’t read the second line…where sleeps in death the body of Mrs. Mary (can’t read the next word) Crawford While living she enjoyed an enviable station in the estimation of those who surrounded her. As a daughter she was affectionate, as a sister she was indulgent, as a wife her devoted attachment was unequaled. She died in…I can’t read it looks like the 18th and then I see on the 6th of May 18 something. Can anyone share what it says in its entirety?
What kind of flashlight are you using? I’m going to visit my families pioneer cemetery and want to read the headstones. I only have a small pocket, one bulb flashlight. Will that be enough? Oh, I just noticed your flashlight link, thanks
