Help Us
Document Chatham County Gravestones The Cemetery Photo Project
Photographs are the only sure way to
permanently save the important information that
gravestones contain. Although we often think of stone as
everlasting, the deterioration of many old gravestones in the
county due to weathering is all too apparent. As decades pass,
inscriptions are fading and stones are deteriorating or even
disappearing. Tree-fall, livestock, vandalism and other sources
of destruction are also threats.
A photographic record allows us to see what actually appears on
the stone – inscriptions, including exact spellings, birth and
death dates, and epitaphs, as well as any artistic carving. It
is a record of what the grave marker looked like at a particular
time -- before further damage occurs or the stone disappears.
If you would like to help us document Chatham County’s
gravestones, we welcome your help. Whether you photograph all of
the stones in a cemetery or just your own family’s grave
markers, we invite you to share your digital images with us.
They will be made part of our files on the cemetery and posted
on our website so that others have access to the genealogical
information they contain.
Generally, we want pictures just as they come out of the camera.
Don’t rotate, crop, or adjust brightness or contrast. Don’t
reduce the resolution. Send them to us with warts and all, and
our web guru will clean them up as he posts them. Do not let
your email program reduce the size of the picture before
sending. For sending more than a handful of photos, it is best
to send them to us on a CD. Please organize the photos by
cemetery if you are sending photos from more than one site.
Using a separate folder for each cemetery is a good way to do
this.
Send your photos to:
Cemetery Photo Project
Chatham County Historical Association
PO Box 93
Pittsboro, NC 27312
If you are planning to help us by sending a
large number of photos, please contact Bev Wiggins (919-542-4478
or
cemeterysurvey@chathamhistory.org ) before you begin your
project, if possible. If you contact us before you start, we may
be able to provide you with some information that could make
your task easier—such as a list of the known gravestones in the
cemetery. We might also have specific questions about some
stones that you could help us with.
To send a few photos, you may use email.
Please contact Bev Wiggins at
cemeterysurvey@chathamhistory.org before sending your
photos this way. Please do not let your email program reduce the
resolution of the photos. In your email, please also include the
information indicated below.
If you’ve already taken the photos, that’s
okay, too. If you have only prints to share, we’ll make those a
part of our records and, as resources permit, we’ll scan them
for addition to the website.
Information to Include with Your Photos Please include the following information with your email or
in a note with your photos:
Your name
Your contact information: phone number,
address, and email address
Cemetery in which photos were taken.
Please give the name of the cemetery, if it has one, or
describe in detail where the cemetery is located. [If you
are including photos from more than one cemetery, please
organize them by cemetery. One way to do this is to make a
folder for each
cemetery on the CD, or send separate emails for each
cemetery.]
Date photos were taken.
Name of photographer, if you did not take
the photos
Permission from photographer for us to
include the photos on our cemetery website
We are also interested in obtaining old
photos of gravestones in the county. If you have some older
photos of gravestones that you are willing to let us copy or
scan, please contact
Photographs are the only sure way to
permanently save the important information that 
If you would like to help us document Chatham County’s
gravestones, we welcome your help. Whether you photograph all of
the stones in a cemetery or just your own family’s grave
markers, we invite you to share your digital images with us.
They will be made part of our files on the cemetery and posted
on our website so that others have access to the genealogical
information they contain.
Generally, we want pictures just as they come out of the camera.
Don’t rotate, crop, or adjust brightness or contrast. Don’t
reduce the resolution. Send them to us with warts and all, and
our web guru will clean them up as he posts them. Do not let
your email program reduce the size of the picture before
sending. For sending more than a handful of photos, it is best
to send them to us on a CD. Please organize the photos by
cemetery if you are sending photos from more than one site.
Using a separate folder for each cemetery is a good way to do
this.
If you are planning to help us by sending a
large number of photos, please contact Bev Wiggins (919-542-4478
or