You gotta love small towns!

What is there to do in Red Bay, AL (pop. 3177 ) after you have visited the Coon Dog Cemetery, Elvis' homestead in Tupelo, MS, walked the downtown area of Russellville & Florence AL and Belmont, Golden and Dennis MS and eaten at all 5 of their restaurants?    

Well we can always entertain ourselves geocaching but we have now found another activity.    We have signed up with Find-a Grave to be volunteer photographers.    If your are not familiar with this organization they put genealogy enthusiast in touch with volunteers in areas where they may have family buried.   As a volunteer photographer we receive a request via email with the name of the person and cemetery and go out and take a picture of the grave and headstone.    Sounds easy huh?   Sometimes it is but quite often we feel like Lewis and Clark.  

The hardest ones are private, family plots dating back to the 1800's.    They are usually set back off the road   without any signage.    You have to be a local to know where they are.    We got a request for one in Belmont, MS.     We got as close as we could using our GPS then stopped a gentleman working in his yard and asked him if he knew where Byram Family Cemetery was located.    He lived here his entire life and use to play as a boy in the cemetery.   Of course he couldn't give us directions  but got in his car and lead us to the spot.  We had to park on the road and go through a chained gate onto private property.   But since he knew the owner, he walked up, unchained it and in we went.   We never would have found it if it weren't for him....and only in a small, friendly town would someone stop what they were doing to help a stranger with a very strange request.

Most have not seen any upkeep for years and the headstones are turned over, faded or gone.

Below is the path leading to the grave sites.

Not only did Mr. Williams lead us to the spot, he helped in locating different headstones, turning them over and brushing them off.

We didn't find the one we were looking for, but will send pictures of the area to the person who made the request.

This is another interesting family plot  we visited while in Brunswick GA a couple of months ago.

This is the road leading to the cemetery in GA.   To find this "road" we had to go to the county administration building and get a map.   The lady there made it very clear that we were traveling this road at our own risk.   In other words..."don't sue us if something goes wrong"!

Ron wonders where I come up with these activities , but he is very good natured about it and always comes with me.


Hope all is well!