2017 Video Intro

As mentioned in my first blog post for 2017, videos will soon be incorporated into this blog. The hope is to modernize, update, and make the blog fun. Everyone likes videos; but it is not as easy as it might seem. At least not for me. Aside from the video quality, sound quality might be more important. Hey, who wants to watch let alone listen to something with terrible sound? Hopefully my sound is sufficient. But, this is the first video and mainly a test.

And as I state in the video, viewers will not be subjected to watching me on a regular basis. Hahaha! Lots for me to learn. A new DSLR was purchased. Huge learning curve for me on using that. Video editing software needs to be utilized also. Fortunately, this one plus minute video was done "on the fly" with no editing needed. Until the next post, video, or documentary!

New Video detailing work at the Evangelical Protestant Cemetery

A new seven minute video was created and is located at the bottom of this blog. The video was created by my daughter on her cell phone and it shows the work and effort that has been put into reclaiming the Krumkill Road Evangelical Protestant Cemetery. We just finished rehabbing an area in the cemetery that we are calling the Civil War grove. Numerous Civil War vets and their wives are buried there. With so many vets buried in this area, we decided to work on their gravestones first.

Many thanks go out to those who have aided this project in one way or another. A thank you goes out to Julie who recently gave a donation towards this project. Thank you!

Gravestone Cleaning Video

Earlier this afternoon, my wife and I were at Albany Rural Cemetery and we created a short video on how to clean a gravestone. We went to a relative's lot and chose a stone within it and I began to clean the stone and also described why and how to clean it while Michele filmed the demo. The video will be at the end of this blog entry.

I must mention that I am not a professional gravestone conservator; simply a genealogist and descendant from my ancestors who is caring for his ancestors and relatives gravesites as best as he can. I have cleaned numerous gravestones of my relatives and have uprighted and leveled half-dozen others.

I admit that some stones have cleaned up better than others. But whether one gravestone comes out better than the next; they all are in much better condition that before I started.

A picture of the gravestone pre-cleaning is below.

A picture of the gravestone post-cleaning is below.

In two weeks, I will come back to this plot to check whether the gravestone has brightened. The lichens that were growing on the stone were removed and the stone is obviously cleaner than before. Time will tell how it comes out.

Below are two photos where the outcome was great with only one cleaning application.

The original video was shot in HD and was crystal clear but unfortunately the video had to be compressed in order to be uploaded on this blog.  Video quality and clarity were lost.