Victorian Mourning Clothes
Victorian mourning clothes may have been hanging in your ancestor’s closet during the 1800s – a black dress with a high neck, black leather button-up shoes, a black top hat, and more. And when death brought those black clothes out of storage, your ancestors may…
Preparing the Victorian Home for a Funeral
Preparing the Victorian home for a funeral was an all-consuming task. Upper and middle-class families tried to memorialize their loved one’s passing like Queen Victoria herself. And that wasn’t easy. When Queen Victoria’s husband passed away, she remained in mourning for the rest of her…
10 Victorian Cemetery Traditions
Victorian cemetery traditions were very intimate. Funerals were often held in the home and mourning periods lasted for decades. Today, death is more removed from everyday life. Most people spend their final days in a hospital or nursing home. If someone does die at home,…
Undertaker Advertisements from the 1800s
Undertaker advertisements of the 1800s hold fascinating information about the days in which our ancestors lived. Would you like to know if your ancestor’s community had elaborate funerals or quiet memorials? Check the undertaker’s ads! Would you like to know how much your ancestor might…
Native American Burial Rituals
Native American burial rituals can help us to understand the values of unique groups of people. In the early 1900s, when my grandmother was about five years old, she was playing outside with her twin sister in rural Michigan when a Native American man came…
Genealogy Trips are the New Family Vacation
Genealogy trips can bring your family history alive! Online archives and DNA have made it easier than ever to discover our ancestors and our heritage. So why not visit the places where your great-great-grandparents lived and died? As you walk where they walked and do…
12 Cemetery Superstitions
Cemetery superstitions from the last century or two may have more influence over how you behave when it comes to family funerals and burials than you might realize. Have you ever worn black to a funeral? Did you travel from a funeral home to the…
What About Unmarked Graves?
Unmarked graves are burial sites without visible markers. How will those who have been buried in graves without headstones be remembered? Thanks to the BillionGraves app, there is an easy solution! Unmarked graves become genealogical treasures once the site has been photographed with the BillionGraves…
Burial Customs from Around the World
Burial customs from around the world provide an important link to our ancestors. They are physical evidence of a society’s spiritual beliefs, sometimes dating back thousands of years. Most people believe that their ancestor’s spirits journey to an afterlife but what their families do to…
Animals at the Cemetery: Wildlife Meets Afterlife
Cemeteries are usually associated with death, but they are actually full of life – animal life. As cities around the world expand and the number of urban green spaces decrease, animals are crowded out of their natural habitats. They have to go somewhere, right? And…
Using Gravestone Clues to Grow Your Family Tree
Using gravestone clues to grow your family tree may be one of genealogy’s best-kept secrets! Do you have some brick walls in your family tree? A trip to the cemetery may be just the thing to help you break through! What a Clue Can Do…
20 Tips for BillionGraves Transcribers
These tips for BillionGraves transcribers are fantastic! Whether you have been transcribing gravestone images for years or are just thinking about volunteering, there is something here for you! BillionGraves is preserving the world’s cemeteries, one headstone at a time. Using the BillionGraves app on smartphones,…