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Sunday, January 15, 2012

Ind. Law - "Illinois man documents tombstones"

Interesting, long story today from Tracy Moss of the Champaign, Ill News-Gazette about Michael Coan, a "headstone hunter" who, in 2006:

... started a quest to photograph every tombstone in Vermilion County, and for the most part has accomplished his task, except for the occasional old family plot someone will bring to his attention.

He’s photographed the headstones in more than 120 cemeteries in Vermilion, taking more than 220,000 pictures, and has branched out to cemeteries in other counties, including Champaign, Edgar, Iroquois, Douglas and Ford counties in Illinois and cemeteries in Vermillion and Warren counties in Indiana. Altogether, he’s taken more than 400,000 pictures of headstones in the Illinois-Indiana area.

And he’s in the process of posting all those pictures on his website, vermilioncounty.info.

“It’s just a hobby,” he said.

But preserving historical information that could be lost if a headstone decays or is destroyed is one purpose of his hobby, Coan said. And by posting them online, he’s also providing a tool that can help genealogical researchers. * * * *

He also posts the GPS coordinates of the cemeteries, so others can find them on their own, particularly the older, smaller and more rural cemeteries. He said the coordinates are important, because many of the smaller, older ones are in the middle of wooded or overgrown areas and can be lost. * * *

He’s also working, he said, on a project with the Illiana Genealogical and Historical Society to update all their cemetery readings and locator books * * * [and he] said he’s also working with the Illinois chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution to locate local graves of veterans of the War of 1812.

Another interesting story about a similar effort, in Kentucky, was posted in the March 22, 2009 ILB, headed "Church, genealogist in tussle over cemetery information."

Two bills have been introduced this year in the Indiana General Assembly relating to old cemeteries, HB 1015, which "provides immunity from civil liability to landowners who grant a decedent's family members and descendants access to cemeteries that are located on the landowners' properties and subject to property tax assessment as cemetery lands," and HB 1034, "Historic cemeteries. Expands the qualifications of a cemetery that is eligible to be maintained by the county cemetery commission to include cemeteries that were established before 1875 or contain a Civil War veteran." The latter has been approved by the House local government committee.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 15, 2012 01:29 PM
Posted to Indiana Law