$200 on photocopies!

Yes, it was hard to believe myself when I tallied my paid outs for copies of microfilm records of newspapers that I've printed over the past year at the Commerce Library. It did indeed add up to just under $200 in photocopies! Imagine if I had to tally the man hours I've spent researching Maysville. There's no telling what that's worth. And all for what, you ask? Satisfaction. Enjoyment. Fulfillment. Purpose. I'm convinced it is my duty on earth to record Maysville's history and educate others about it. They say a pastor feels "called" to preach the gospel when he starts out. I think genealogists feel "called" to help solve family puzzles.

Finished updated inventory of Sunrise Cemetery

I was able to finish updating the burials at Sunrise Cemetery today. Many of the new graves in the new memorial gardens section had brass plaques or granite plaques installed since my last visit. Last time there were mostly funeral home temporary markers there.

Now comes the task of typing the updated information into my Excel database and then I'll have to plot the new burials on my map. I hope to be able to print an updated version (Version #5) of the Sunrise Cemetery Records of Maysville, Georgia, when I go back to work next week.

Back to the cemetery

Since the weather was gorgeous today, I decided to revisit Sunrise Cemetery to continue updating my cemetery records. I will postpone my visit to the Commerce Library until Thursday, since it will be open until 8 p.m. that day anyway.

I made it through about 330 graves today, and I got a sunburn while doing it. I haven't worn a short sleeve tshirt without a jacket in a good while, so it felt good to soak up the sun.

I found the graves of a few I had been wondering about. I knew Fred & Miriam BLANKENSHIP and Bob ROE had been buried since my last inventory, but didn't know where--until today. I also found new graves for Stanley CASH, Morgan COTTON and Toni MCGEE. I also found a future grave for Butch MCGEE.

There were several of those solar crosses in the cemetery. Those will absorb the sun's energy during the day and light the cross at night. I've heard that Jackson Memorial Gardens in Commerce is beautiful at night with all the crosses glowing. The grave of Chase Dillon BOSWELL, infant son of Shad & Charitye Lewis BOSWELL, had moon-shaped and star-shaped solar lights that I hadn't seen before.

Most cemeteries are inventoried by rows, which is fine if the cemetery is laid out in a nice plotted plan, but this cemetery has some of the most misaligned rows I've ever seen. I tried to do my last edition of the book by cemetery plots instead of by rows but this is confusing when you're trying to find the grave and using the book as a guide.

Scrapped the latest design

You may have noticed that I have been tinkering with the site a lot lately. Although I liked the new pastel colors, which were easier on the eyes and seasonally appropriate, I made the mistake of trying to rebuild the site from scratch. The problem with that is the volume of information that gets taken offline that already had links all over the net to it. For example, no one could find the history of the town online since I had taken it down, and I received a feedback comment from someone seeking that information. Also, I had taken down the cemetery records and that is one volume of information that is heavily used by genealogists. So, tonight I restored most of the information to the web. I still have some organization issues to address and I have a ton of work to do to reformat the look of the pages. So, you'll notice many pages currently that are not uniform, but at least the information is still out on the web for perusal.

New site design

Spent time today loading the new website design. I started adding the photo gallery, which I think will be very popular to most readers. Most websites do not have very large image files because they consume a lot of bandwidth and increased bandwidth usage usually results in higher web hosting fees by the web hosting company. But, we'll see how it goes.