In between trips, blogging and presentations, my geniemate GeniAus (aka Jill Ball) has managed to begin a new project (and website) …. “Six Feet Under Downunder“, which is a listing of Australian burial and cremation records online … and she’s asking for your help!

But first here’s her explanation of how it came about ….

While preparing for my Six Feet Under Downunder webinar over the past few days I realised that there is no one site that lists all the wonderful resources in Australia that index the names of the deceased resting in cemeteries and crematoria around Australia. It would have helped me no end in my preparation if there was a meta site that links to such resources.

Of course I decided to create such a site. I must be mad but I hope that the many generous genies around Australia who know of such indexes of  memorials, headstones and burial sites will share them with me so they can be loaded on the site. I will initially only link to free sites that are available online, sites that one can visit via the internet.

So Aussie geniefriends, please visit her website, click on the various state links. These link to Google Doc pages with lists of cemeteries. If you know of other FREE sites, that are not yet listed, please send her an email with details, 6feetunderdownunder@gmail.com, and she’ll get it added.

The more comprehensive this is, the more useful it is. And I can see this being an incredible resource for those searching for Australian cemeteries.

My adventures in Finland continue and cover churches, cemeteries, a mental hospital and family. Sounds like an interesting mix. Right?

Friday 30 June 2017
The day was cool and cloudy, and rain was forecast, still my cousin took me touristing again. This time to the Rock Church in Helsinki. I found this listed on a number of “things you must do in Finland” lists, so asked if we could go there. The Rock Church is a modern church, built in the 1960s that has been built into rock and largely underground. I know my photos don’t do it justice, so here’s a link to find out more about it. It is a big tourist attraction, and yes it even costs to enter (3 Euros/person).

the entrance to the church

the view from the balcony

looking up

the top of the dome roof from the outside

Next stop was the Helsinki cemetery. I visited this cemetery a couple of years ago and was shown some relatives graves then, so it was an interesting challenge to see if we could locate them again from memory. Yay for us, we did, though we pretty much walked the entire cemetery looking for them. But since it’s a spectacular cemetery, and the rain held off it was lovely to just wander. I know a cemetery wouldn’t be on most tourist’s itinerary, but you know it’s what us genie folk LOVE, so I was pleased that we got there.

look who I found in the cemtery

Otto and Hedvig, my 2x great grandparents

Gustaf is my 3x great grandpa

Gustaf’s wife, Ulrika is there too, but in a separate grave

having candle lanterns on graves is a common thing in Finland

isn’t this grave pretty

more pretty graves …

this was interesting, grave plaques or markers with lanterns

Following on from visiting a church and a cemetery, my cousin took me to a mental hospital which is now partly a cafe … you’d never guess it from outside would you?

now a cafe, but formerly a mental hospital in Helsinki

Saturday 1 July 2017
Yesterday was seeing the ancestors, today was seeing the cousins. Today was an ‘at home’ day, so I don’t have any interesting place pictures to show you. But we did have cousins come and visit and with quiche, rhubarb pie, Tim Tams and Fruchocs (chocolate covered apricots), chatter, photos and family history … it was a great afternoon.

cousins

and I said we needed a group selfie

Tomorrow we head off to the Summer house.

I’m a follower of the “Days of the Year” website.

For those who aren’t familiar with this site, here’s what their About page says:

“Days Of The Year aims to bring all of the world’s weird, funny, wonderful and bizarre holidays under one roof, and to create the ultimate guide to celebrating each and every day.”

Scroll on through and you’ll find some weird ones like False Teeth Day (9 March), Pecan Day (25 March), International Axe Throwing Day (13 June), Lamington Day (21 July), Save Your Photos Day (last Saturday in September) or Name Your PC Day (20 November) and literally hundreds, if not thousands more.

I tend to use the site to see if there’s any “Days” that are coming up that I could use as a blog idea. For Recipe Day (or even Biscuit Day) I’ve thought of popping up my grandma’s fav Rock Bun recipe, Wedding Day I could find some old wedding pics, Grandparents Day should be easy enough to come up with something, Old Stuff Day (2 March) sounds like a fun one … and so on.

And for those who are genealogically-minded pop these on your calendar:
– Genealogy Day (2nd Saturday in March)
– Ancestor Appreciation Day (27 September)

Anyway I have some cemetery photos I’ve been wanting so share, so I was looking on their site for for any listing of “Cemetery Day”, “Headstone Day”, “Gravesite Day” or even a “Taphophilia Day”. But as there doesn’t seem to be any, so in lieu of any official “Day”, I’ve decided to make this coming Sunday 18 June “Cemetery Day”.

I’ve come up with some ways that those who wish to take part in Cemetery Day can do so:
– visit a cemetery
– visiting a cemetery is good, but photographing it is even better
– if you’ve been to a cemetery before and have photos, why not upload them to a BillionGraves or FindAGrave
– share a pic or two on your blog, or on social media of a cemetery you’ve been to

I looked into making this an “official” Day, but it seems that it has to be run as an unofficial Day first, and prove that it has a following. So that’s now my plan. As with any of the “official” Days feel free to interpret Cemetery Day as you wish.

I’m already looking forward to Sunday 18 June, and I hope you’ll join me in taking part in Cemetery Day.

For those taking part who are on social media, I’ve chosen the hashtag #CemeteryDay to keep it simple. 

Have you ever been to a cemetery and transcribed headstones?

Who am I kidding … of course you have!

Well I had too, but just to local cemeteries around my own state of South Australia. But on my trip to England earlier this year I got to not only visit so many ancestral towns, but also find and transcribe a bunch of ancestors headstones too.

In this post I want to share with you the photos that I took at the little town of Berry Pomeroy in Devon, but first here’s what Wikipedia has to say about the town …