The following announcement was written by the Godfrey Library:
Godfrey Library in Middletown, Connecticut has begun a long term project to preserve, update and expand cemetery tombstone information originally included in the Hale Collection’s tombstone inscriptions from Connecticut’s 2,200 cemeteries completed in the 1930’s. The Godfrey Library project includes photographs of most tombstones and also includes information often not on the tombstones themselves as well as two to three additional generations of burials.
Beginning with the Hale Collection inscriptions and cemetery visits Godfrey Library staff and volunteers researched funeral home records, death notices and obituaries, town and city records and published cemetery records. Entries may include name, birth and death dates, spouse’s name plus birth and death dates and associated information such as relationships with other family members. Each cemetery listing contains a brief description of the cemetery and directions to it. Names and tombstone photographs are hyperlinked so a person researching any name can click on the name to see the tombstone photograph.
Godfrey Library staff and volunteers have completed research on about 70 cemeteries to date. These cemeteries range in size from three burials to 8,612 burials and are almost entirely located in central Connecticut. The completed cemeteries include 46,637 burials and 30,423 photographs since some tombstones have several names.
Sixty of the 70 cemeteries are online at the Godfrey Library website (www.godfrey.org). People who are not subscribers may review two examples of cemeteries by going to the website, clicking on “Search,” then “Search Free.”
There is no projected completion date for the project since visiting each cemetery, collecting information from a variety of sources and processing that information are all labor intensive. Anyone wishing to volunteer can do so by calling the library at 860-346-4375 or sending an email to library@godfrey.org.
