I didn't realize this...prolly cuz I'm not a genealogist...but we kept crap for records. Churches kept track of who was born, baptized, got married & died. I'm not sure who kept track of land transactions. Then I guess something like courts kept track of suits, divorces, wills, etc. Otherwise there was the family bible & headstones.
If the places that house this old info were destroyed by war or natural disaster we have even less documentation.
We also didn't map out cemeteries, sell plots & keep track of who we put where. That's what the headstones were for. We didn't think about idiots disrespecting the dead & their family by stealing headstones. We also didn't think time & weather could do so much damage...but it does.
If you know of especially any private family cemeteries in the middle of the woods or down a deserted road please first search find a grave & make sure no one else has added it but then grab your digital camera, notebook/pen & sidewalk chalk for those hard to read headstones & record them before it's too late.
Also take a friend, a hoe or shovel for snakes & some scissors or clippers for grass & weeds. People want to see names & dates...not that they're always correct but most times they are. The closer you can get & the less in the way the better.
Hopefully if it's on someone's property & there's still anyone there they'll know something about it. Or hopefully a neighbor will know something about it. Because there's some headstones not even sidewalk chalk helps. Or they could be field stones with initials. Or there could be nothing at all.
Sometimes people do keep track of things & sometimes they share their lists with the local library. You could try it...just on the off chance. Otherwise it looks like those people are forgotten for now. But at least you got what you could before that was destroyed as well.
By the way...if you notice any veteran headstones trashed I believe those can be replaced for free. If all it takes to get a vet's headstone fixed or replaced is checking into it...please do.
