Web sites for cemeteries, obituaries and wills.

Association for Gravestone Studies. The name says it all! Check this site for information on old gravestones, rubbings, information on old cemeteries.

This is the site for the U.S. Genweb’s Tombstone Project. Volunteers are recording the information from old cemeteries before they get any harder to read. Check this site to see if someone is "doing" a cemetery you are interested in or if you get lucky, it may already have been done!

U.S. Genweb. Try the site for the county you are interested in, you may find the cemetery information already has been transcribed and listed here. For example, the Herkimer/Montgomery county site has many obscure, small cemeteries with a listing of each gravestone in the cemetery.

Cemetery Listing Association. Another attempt to record cemeteries. You can actually search by the person’s name here (or just a last name) and it will tell you which cemetery they are listed in, and then go to the listing for that cemetery.

Cyndi’s list is always a great place to begin but sometimes a little overwhelming. There are lots of links here for cemeteries, funeral homes and obituaries.

Obituary Daily Times. Volunteers transcribe basic information from obituaries in their daily newspaper and it is uploaded to the web in one BIG database. Basically covers obituaries in the last 2 years. It is searchable by name, even maiden name. Here is a sample:

ALEXANDER, Muriel (REDINGTON)[CHICK]; 76; Milford MA; Natick Bulletin; 1997-12-11; jgraham

In this instance, Muriel Redington first married Mr. Chick, then married Mr. Alexander, died at age 76 in Milford, MA, her obituary appears in the 12/11/97 issue of the Natick Bulletin. The paper is published in MA since there not a different state listed after the name of the newspaper. This gives you quite a bit of information about her and where to look for her obituary.

New York State Library Newspaper Project. If you need an older newspaper published in NYS to find an obituary check this site! It contains a newspaper database arranged in two different ways. The first is a listing of newspapers that have been microfilmed and can be found at the New York State Library. These are all available in interlibrary loan through your local library. The second is a listing of newspapers that have been microfilmed and are held at libraries across 8 regions of NYS. Just for example, it lists the newspapers that are available on microfilm at the New York State Historical Association Library in Cooperstown. You can even look up and find all of the newspapers that were published in the area that your ancestor would have lived (in New York State only).

W. David Samuelsen has transcribed many of the INDEX TO WILLS books that are found at the Surrogate’s Court. He has done many counties in many states. If you want to know if the person you are researching has left a will -- check his site. You can then order copies of the information contained in the will for a small fee. I have heard from many people who have used his service and been very happy with the information. I think this would be the same as the information contained on the microfilm you can get from the Family History Center.