How to read moss covered headstones

[Helenw52]

I feel like I am running out of time, as few of my generation (the 3rd in NZ) have no awareness of their grand parents lives, let alone their roots in China. An as they older ones cross over, that is one less fountain of knowledge.

[noragay]

I was thinking of photographing my local graveyard ;any suggestions on cataloguing/layout gratefully received,
 noragay.

[Andi R]

I was just reading thyis thread and would like to throw my bit in:

I am one of those who agrees with cleaning gravestones  CAREFULLY and use various methods in talc and chalk

But if you are going to use water please do it in summer when there are not going to be any frosts as you may think the stone is dry but some water will have soaked in to the cracks in the stone especially where the moss has grown, this could freeze and split the layers of the stone

Oh and be careful when cleaning stones as some of the mosses and lichens when inhaled can make you very ill

IMPORTANT ADDITION:

PLEASE READ MY THREAD 'Important Info'

[General Dogsbody]

I was thinking of photographing my local graveyard ;any suggestions on cataloguing/layout gratefully received,
 noragay.

Get some help! We have recently photographed and transcribed the MI's in our churchyard, first creating a grid ( string and Jill's jim jams to mark the yards) to map the graves accurately [?]  We spent about 600 hours in total, say about 1 hour per grave!

Edit 24 June 2011. The results of our efforts can now be seen by all at
http://stmarysrickinghallinferior.onesuffolk.net/churchyard-survey/