I happen to work one block away from the cemetery where my great-grandfather is buried. His name name was Herman Steinhardt (my father’s father’s father). As I was walking around the society’s plot, I found some other graves with the name “Steinhardt” on them (with the same spelling). One in particular died back in 1943. I went to the cemetery office to see if they had any information about next-of-kin (even if it’s 61 years out of date), but they had nothing. I even managed to get his death certificate from the city, hoping that his parents’ name might ring a bell, but no dice, the names were unfamiliar. Still, he could have been a cousin or an uncle I suppose.
Would it be incredibly tacky if I left a sealed letter by the grave asking any visitor (and, yes, I know the odds are slim after 61 years) to email me? Of course, I would have to find a way to reasonably weather-proof it and make sure it stayed near the gravesite. But assuming that all those things are possible (and the cemetery managers don’t object), would that be acceptable, or is it going beyond the bounds of good taste?
I don’t think this would be tacky at all. I look at these things as if it were to happen to me. I recently visited my family’s large burial plot in Iowa, and found lots of headstones that I was unsure about. I would have been deligted to find a note to touch base with a distant relative. Of course, YMMV.
I can’t imagine that anyone who is visiting a 61-year-old grave is going to be offended if someone wants to contact them about the deceased. More likely, whoever visits the grave (if anyone visits) would be thrilled to talk about that long lost loved one. After all, it’s not like you’re trying to get into an inheritance or something. All you want is information.
I suppose there are always exceptions to this, but I think it’s more typical to find people happy to talk about a lost loved one, especially one that’s been gone for a long time. I remember my dad (who had an exceptional memory) asking someone he just met if they were related to [So-and-so, who died 20 years before] and the person was thrilled to talk about the dead relative. They literally beamed to find someone else who remembered and was interested.
I would agree. Some decrepit old widow might visit the grave everyday to gently cry into a black hankie, and seeing your letter may send her into faint, and a gang of young street toughs will stroll along the street, see the old woman’s prone form, and leap the fence to rummage through her purse, taking all her money and her nitroglycerin pills, and then she’ll awaken with chest pains, not have her medicine, and die, but it’s much more likely that no one will visit the grave, and you just won’t hear anything. Anyone you do hear from would likely love to talk to you.
I would say kinda tacky, but not really a big deal. The way I see it, leaving stuff other than flowers on a grave basicly amounts to littering. If everyone did stuff like that, pretty soon the place would look like the bullitin board at the post office.
But on the “Grand Scale of Humanity’s Tragedys” it would be pretty damn small.
I would also add: Be prepared for lots of crank emails from surly, disinfranchised teenagers with nothing better to do that hang around cemetarys at night smoking and messing with people on thier computers.
I don’t think it’s tacky at all; in fact, I think it’s a great idea. I think I’ve forwarded this info to you before, but if you really want to find your lost relatives, check this out: www.jewishgen.org
I’ve posted what I know of my family tree there, and found all sorts of relatives and old friends of the family, including a branch in Amsterdam! I highly recommend it.
I’m willing to be that you could find the obituary in the archives of one of the local papers, given that you know the year. You could ask some of our resident researchers for tips. The obit would be a rich source of “succeeded by”, and “leaves”
According to my dad, (a funeral director, who has also been active on the cemetary committee in our parish), it would be a longshot-you don’t know if anyone visits, and another thing I thought of, the letter you put there might get blown away, or tossed by a groundsworker.
You’re better off sticking to records and such. Good luck.
