Cemetery Preservation

There are a great deal of cemetery preservation resources on the Interwebs. Many of them provide web based tutorials, online or in person classes, or symposiums to provide those caring for historic burial grounds the guidance they need to preserve the location. Caring for an older cemetery can be challenging and if not carefully implemented can cause damage to grave covers, monuments, and markers.

Concrete grave covers, especially those made during the early and mid 20th century are the most prone to damage as they tend to have been made with limited funds and in many cases with lower quality materials. A weed wacker can be a destructive force on any material used in the construction or etching of graves, but concrete is the most fragile. The use of chemical weed killers can slowly deteriorate a grave and should never be used in a historic cemetery, near any tombstone or marker. 

There are many great resources available here on the Interwebs:

The National Park Service provides a well written and valuable Cemetery Preservation Guide for historic and national cemeteries.  There are also several preservation “how to” articles and other resources for cemetery caretakers. The Department also publishes a book that can found at the government bookstore. Along with the cemetery preservation booklet, there are other “briefs” on historic preservation. The price of these is around $6.00 but well worth the cost.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation supports an site called Saving Places, it includes a step by step list of how to clean markers and guidance to registration of cemeteries and other resources for caretakers. 

The Association for Gravestone studies provides several “publications that may be helpful for reviewing accepted methods, materials, and best practice that promote the physical, historical and cultural longevity of markers and burial grounds.”

 

Cemetery Registry has multiple downloads related to preservation that were taken from various state and other sources, including a Tomb and Marker Survey Manual created by the University of Pennsylvania.  This template is in Acrobat format but could easily be edited or re-created to the suit your needs and allows for very detailed information/ The survey was used in the graduate program in historic preservation. 

Also, the best way to find resources is using Google search. Google search results for “cemetery preservation guides”. There are many many resources.