gravestones project

David Neumann , Samstag, 15.11.2008, 21:09 (vor 6389 Tagen)

Last May my wife and I joined Don Miller's Volhynian Villages Adventure Tour to Ukraine. There were twelve in our group, and we spent almost 2 weeks travelling around to villages seeking connections to our ancestors who had lived there many decades ago.

From time to time, along the way, we found old cemeteries or places where there were gravestones. In most cases, the vast number of stones had been removed or destroyed. In some places we found a few that were intact, some with damage or wear. Although I did not find any names that were connected to my family history on these stones, I decided to take as many pictures as I could, given our limited time in each place. My thinking was that the remaining stones may also dissappear, so a photgraphic record would be very valuable - perhaps to others not able to travel to Volhynia.

When we got back to Canada, I started thinking about how I would let people know about these gravestone pictures. Because I had made mention of our Volhynian experiences in my travel blog - http://ned-eurotour.blogspot.com - I received a request from Gerhard Koenig for pictures of the gravestones, with as much documentation as could be provided. He and Irene had started a gravestones project on this website, and were looking for additional pictures. That was fantastic!

I started sending in the pictures and information, and found Gerhard to be very helpful. Now all of my readable pictures are on the website, and can be seen by anyone who cares to seek for this information.

Thank you for started such a great project, and thank you for making it so user friendly.