2024 West Virginia Cemetery Preservation Workshop Series
This workshop series teaches West Virginians the methods to locate & document cemeteries and acts to preserve the valuable history that cemeteries contain.
In the classroom portion of workshops, participants can look forward to learning:
- Appalachian burial/funerary history, culture and beliefs
- Historical context of cemetery/burial ground we are using for fieldwork & why its important
- Digital documentation of a cemetery using two different mobile application/websites (BillionGravesⓇ & Find a GraveⓇ)
- Do’s & Don’ts when taking pictures of gravestones/markers
- Basic gravestone/marker style identification (Military, obelisk, etc.)
- How to safely read “unreadable” stones-methods of reading worn stones
- Basic identification of traditional cemetery vegetation & significance
- Basic identification of gravestone/marker material types (i.e. marble, sandstone, slate, bronze, limestone, granite),
- Monument condition and risk assessment
- Preparation of WV State Cemetery Inventory
- West Virginia State Cemetery Codes and applicability to various situations
- Gravestone conservation and cleaning
In the hands-on field experience portion of workshops, participants will:
- Learn about stone iconography/epitaphs and their meanings
- Learn how to use various digital applications to document graves in the field and do any troubleshooting
- Experience taking gravestone pictures, adding photos to memorials, mapping with GPS, adding memorials and corresponding information to mobile app, etc
- Identify different styles of markers/monuments in the cemetery
- Identify different types of traditional vegetation
- Identify types of stones, if it is safe to clean them & methodology
- “Adopt” a gravestone and clean it with D2
- Utilize two different methods to read “unreadable” stones (mirror & D2)
- Experience Hands-on cemetery and gravestone preservation work
Workshops are free, but registration is required and space is limited!
Click the thumbnail of your desired location to be directed to the Zeffy page for details and registration.
This series is funded by a West Virginia Humanities Council grant, the Preservation Alliance of West Virginia, and AmeriCorps.
