 |
Fairfax Genealogical Society
|
|
|
Program & conference tapes by:
|
About the
We divided the county into five geographical areas based on postal zip codes and developed a volume of gravestone inscriptions for each area. These five volumes are:
We have now published the final volume,
Each volume contains descriptions and locations of all of the cemeteries in the geographical area as well as genealogical information extracted from all of the gravestones in all of the noncommercial cemeteries in the area. Each volume has a full-name index and Volume VI has a master full-name index to all six volumes. About the Cemetery ProjectThe Society’s cemetery project was inspired by the work done in the early 1970s by Jane Kirkpatrick Wall, one of the founding members of the Fairfax Genealogical Society. Recognizing the need to record gravestone inscriptions before they were destroyed by weather, vandalism, theft or development, she surveyed many of the county’s cemeteries and graveyards, extracted information from extant gravestones and then donated her work to the Virginia Room of the Fairfax City Regional Library. Her surveys have been a valuable resource to genealogists researching in Fairfax County for over two decades. In the mid 1980s, the Society decided to update and publish Jane Wall’s work, and to survey other graveyards and cemeteries not included in her original project. The administration of the Fairfax County Public Library granted the Society permission to use Jane Wall’s documents in our publications. The Society began by locating all known surveys of Fairfax County cemeteries and comparing them to the Wall surveys. We are especially indebted to Carrie White Avery who conducted surveys in the early 1920s, Aurelia M. Jewell who conducted surveys in the late 1940s and early 1950s and to Brian Conley, Information Specialist in the Virginia Room, Fairfax City Regional Library, who has expended much effort to pinpoint the locations of the more than 350 burial locations in the county. After all surveys were compared, each cemetery containing gravestones was surveyed again, and then checked again in the months before publication. All discrepancies between readings were carefully analyzed. If the surveyor felt that discrepancies arose because a new gravestone had been erected or there were other extenuating circumstances, the inscription from the older survey is included. If a gravestone was recorded in an early survey, and not found several years later (or is illegible), the extract from the earlier survey is included and we indicate the source of the information. Unless otherwise stated, each cemetery in our volumes has been surveyed or resurveyed during the year preceding publication. Of the many burial locations in the county, our main focus has been on those which have gravestones or markers with inscriptions, but information about cemeteries with unmarked graves is included as well, to provide as many clues as possible for the family historian. Since the location of a burial site may be important to family research, we have given detailed directions to each cemetery. Please ask for permission to visit cemeteries which lie on private property. Early in this project, Society members realized how difficult it is to avoid mistakes. We hope that by recognizing our fallibility we have minimized the misinformation we may pass along to our fellow researchers. We have checked, double-checked and triple-checked our surveys and investigated discrepancies with further field checks in order to report the most accurate information possible. The inscriptions and other information presented are not primary evidence. We have gathered together a wealth of clues which we are eager to share with our fellow genealogists. We wish you much luck with your search! About Volume VIWhile preparing Volume VI and reviewing the previous five volumes, we were aware that Volume I was prepared under a different editorial policy. We did not include historical information we had accumulated about these cemeteries. We also realized how much we had learned about how to survey since we published Volume I in 1994. So we began to take a closer look at our files covering cemeteries in the northern section of the county which were covered by Volume I. We began by re-evaluating all of the surveys for the cemeteries in Volume I. We visited each cemetery to double-check its location and condition. We examined all of the discrepancies we found and resurveyed several of the cemeteries. We have attempted to list corrections and additions as clearly as possible. Information given in earlier volumes which has not changed, such as addresses or directions to cemeteries, is not repeated in Volume VI which is not designed to stand alone, but must be used in conjunction with our previous volumes for clarity and completeness. The index in Volume VI is a full-name master index to all six volumes. Women's names are indexed under possible maiden names as well as surnames. Thus, Martha Dandridge Custis Washington is indexed under "Dandridge" and "Custis" as well as "Washington." Judith Taylor McGarvey
Order form for members only
...as accurate as the bereaved relative who ordered the ...as the stonecutter who carved it ...as the surveyor who read it ...as the researcher who checked it ...as the typist who keyed it into the text ...as you, the family historian, who copies the information We are all human and not infallible. |
| ||||||
