Monday, June 9, 2008

Rhode Island Historical Cemeteries Transcription Project

Don't you wish that ALL of the known graves in your locality, county or state was transcribed and indexed? That's a really big project, even for a state as small as Rhode Island.

But they completed this project several years ago, and the results are on the Internet for anyone to browse.

The starting web site for the Rhode Island Historical Cemeteries Transcription Project is at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~rigenweb/cemetery/. The site description says:

"The Rhode Island Historical Cemeteries Transcription Project was begun by genealogists in 1990 with the goal of entering all known transcriptions of cemeteries in RI into a database (phase 1), then sending volunteers into the field with a printout to see which stones were still there and whether they were correctly transcribed (phase 2). The Association for Gravestone Studies format is used. The cemeteries and the listings are primarily 1647-1900. "

The web site notes that:

"Totals as of 2007 are 3,132 registered cemeteries with an estimated total of 3,294 thought to still exist. 428,614 of an estimated 575,775 headstones have been entered into the database. 73.17% of the project is complete."

To use the database, you click on one of these four pages:

* Page 1: A to CURTISS
* Page 2: DAIGNAULT, CHARLES to KEACH
* Page 3: KELLEY, JAMES to REID, EDITH
* Page 4: RENAUD, JEAN to The End

I was looking for Seaver persons buried in RI, and clicked on Page 4. This has an index list - Seaver is in the "320 Seatle" file. There are 27 SEAVER, 2 SEAVERS, and 8 SEAVOR entries. Each entry looks liek this:

SEAVER .... OBED (CAPT) ......... 1758c - 13 NOV 1843 .... SM042

The names and dates are from the gravestones, so some give dates, some only years, and some none at all. The really useful item in each list is the code from the graveyard -- in the example above, Obed Seaver is buried in SM042.

The index for the graveyard locations is at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~rigenweb/cemetery/key.html. The town and cemetery code is simple - the two letters denote the town, and the three numbers are sequential. There are five links on that page to the cemeteries in alphabetical and numerical order:

* BA001 BARRINGTON to CYA64 COVENTRY
* EG001 EAST GREENWICH to HP0A9 HOPKINTON
* JM001 JAMESTOWN to PW500 PAWTUCKET
* RD001 RICHMOND to SM531 SMITHFIELD
* TV001 TIVERTON to WY521 WESTERLY

Obed Seaver is in SM042, so that graveyard lot is in Smithfield - the entry says:

SM042 .. WATERMAN-BURLINGAME LOT .... SMITHFIELD .....CHURCH STREET ->200 ft. W of tel pole #6

The graveyard list provides a fairly clear definition of the location of the graveyard. Amazingly, there are 113 found graveyards in the town of Smithfield, and several more that are Lost.

Since all of the index items on the Name Index list are searchable, you can search for all of the people in a given graveyard easily by doing a Ctrl-F (Find) and enter the graveyard code to find persons in the Name Index pages in that cemetery. In many cases, the people near a certain person are relatives of that person.

I have a long list of surnames to find grave locations for - the White, Wade, Hawkins, Champlin, Kenyon, Hazard, Oatley, Kirby, Horton, Tracy, Pray, Ladd, Carpenter, Card, Slocum, Greenman, and other surnames.

If you have ancestors buried in Rhode Island, you should be consulting the Rhode Island Historical Cemeteries Transcription project.

If only every state, or even counties, had transcription projects like this, we would be able to find the resting place of many more of our ancestors.

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