Wandering through my local church yard (cemetery) recently I was struck by my memories of junior school. We would wander around searching for a “nice” headstone with a large sheet of butchers paper flapping in the wind and a brightly coloured crayon. We didn’t want any old head stone, just a pretty one. One with lots of carvings of angels, and pretty words. Then when we had found the perfect one, we would hold the paper against the stone with one hand and rub the crayon over the lumps and bumps to capture in crayon the impressions beneath the paper with the other. There was something immensely satisfying about capturing someone’s details in crayon, it is certainly far more personal than seeing a picture of it, as you usually had to stand on the spot where the person’s head would have been (always apologised though), and you had to get up close and personal to the stone itself. You had to touch it, you had to work with it. It became part of the process, not just an image you were trying to create.

I’m sure most of you wouldn’t dream of gathering papers and crayons, (chalk works as does charcoal or thick black pencils BTW) and tracking down your ancestors grave stones so you could do a rubbing…but it’s not such a silly idea. Each stone of course has its own perspective on the environment and moss and lichen will have found a way to colonise the stone. Over time these tiny organisms can take over and hide the names completely from view as had happened with the very old stones in my local church yard. A rubbing gives you that kind of perspective. A photograph might be quicker, but it’s not quite the same.

Going back to my wanderings (before my wanderings took over) through the church yard I recognised many families and many family names from my childhood. Laid out in rows, neatly covered with warm grass and the odd bunch of flowers I wondered at the fascination of names. Before the modern spelling of everything, and the use of places for people’s names, names were passed through the generations. Like a baton – he carries his fathers name you know. He was named for his grandfather. Her second name was her great, great aunts….

But that’s also not what I wanted to talk to you about today. It’s about capturing the images so you have a visual reminder of where you went, the resting place of your relatives, as opposed to just a plot number, name and place of burial. I don’t know about you – but sometimes only a photograph will “complete the picture” so to speak.

So take photographs, lots of them. Digital cameras give you the benefit of large file sizes – large file sizes means lots of details. You can now get up close and personal without the need to stand on anyone. And you can have a visual chapter to go with the endless reams of paper we still seem to collect. Of course once you have taken the pictures, you can then corral them with the appropriate family name you are researching, along with anything else you find of interest. One place for everything – it certainly makes my life easier.