Guidance for Creation of United States Cemeteries Categories

Profile manager: Natalie Trott [send private message]

General Guidance

Although cemetery categories are quite similar across the globe, every country has slightly different place name structure. Cemetery names are listed at various places, including FindAGrave, BillionGraves, Town/City municipal departments, church records, etc. (this list is not all-inclusive.)

Check the Category: United States, Cemeteries and find the state in which you wish to create a cemetery. Find the correct county category and open it. Look through the list to see if the category already exists. If it is not in the list in the particular state, proceed to create a new cemetery category.

Alternately, If you are creating or editing a person profile, there is a button for category searching located on the toolbar above the edit box. Press it and a search box appears. You may type a cemetery name to verify if the category already exists. If the correct name is in a list which may pop up, choose it and the category will be added to the profile. If it has not already been created, proceed to add the cemetery to the heirarchy.

In the United States, cemetery categories are created following this format: [[Category:Cemetery Name, City/Town Name, State Name]].

Example: [[Category:Oak Grove Cemetery, Logan, Ohio]] [[Category:Holy Cross Cemetery and Mausoleum, San Diego, California]]

Though the county name is posted in FindAGrave for every cemetery, it is not to be added to the category name of every US cemetery. It needs to be added in certain cases, as follows:

When a cemetery lies outside the city/town limits and is located in a county area, the category looks like this: [[Category: Cemetery Name, County Name, State Name]].

Example: [[Category:La Soledad Cemetery, Zapata County, Texas]] [[Category:Walker Cemetery, Clinton County, Missouri]]

Things get a bit more complicated when there is more than one town or city name with the same or a similar name. In such a case, the county name must be included in the cemetery category name. Members should consult a source such as Wikipedia to determine if more than one place in a particular state has the same name. Take a look at: Bainbridge, Ohio.

Examples: [[Category:Old Southwest Cemetery, Bainbridge, Geauga County, Ohio]] [[Category:Bainbridge Cemetery, Bainbridge, Ross County, Ohio]]

Next Steps after Creation

Once you create the cemetery, the text of the category name will appear in red on the profile. This is because it is still a “wanted” category. You must take the further step of adding a category tag to this newly created category in order to connect it to the category hierarchy (sometimes called the category tree). You have one more step left in order to do this.

To complete the process of cemetery creation, you must add the parent category tags to the newly created category page in order to “nest” the category into the hierarchy. This means you add the county cemeteries category in this format: [[Category:County Name, State Name, Cemeteries]] and the geographical place name category: [[Category:City/Town Name, State Name]]. If the cemetery lies in a county, but outside city/town limits, the category will be [[Category:Cemetery Name, County Name, State Name]].

A note about census-designated places (CDPs) and unincorporated communities: According to the help page for US regional location categories, unincorporated places are named the same as incorporated cities/towns, therefore they may be used as locations in cemetery category names. CDPs, however, are frowned upon. The help actually says "try to avoid creating categories for CDPs." So, if the place is designated a CDP (use Wikipedia), please use the county naming method as outlined in the previous paragraph.

If the cemetery is in a township, you will still add the county cemeteries category, along with the geographical category: [[Category:Township Name, County Name, State Name]].

Cemetery Category Page Text

You also need to add at least 50 characters of text to the page. You can add the address and Find a Grave link, which will usually be enough. Long, detailed information should be added to a free-space page. See: Space:How_to_Create_a_Cemetery_Free_Space_Page.

If you are comfortable enough with using templates and their parameters, you should add the Category Info Box for Cemeteries. See: this link

Parameters to use that need to be filled in:

{{CategoryInfoBox Cemetery
|name=
|parent=
|location=
|findagraveID=
|coordinate=
}}

You could also use the following, if you have the information:
|startdate=
|enddate=

Things to Remember

• In Louisiana, there are no counties, but there are parishes. Simply use the parish name in place of a county name.

• Do NOT use &,#, @ and other such characters in a category name. Use the word “and” in lower case. [[Category: Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Cemetery, Jefferson County, Iowa]]

• Saint vs. St. - Find A Grave spells out Saint in a cemetery name, but research further and check the photo of the cemetery sign (if there is one posted), the cemetery web site, the church it is attached to or whatever outside sources that can be found, including Google. Check the county cemeteries category to see if the cemetery already exists under either name (often it does.)

• Mount vs. Mt. - see the Saint vs. St. information as this overlaps.

• Using apostrophes - Find A Grave does not use apostrophes in the names of cemeteries, but WikTree categories may include them. Again, check the cemetery sign photo, if there is one, and/or their web site. Some cemeteries do not use one.

Example:

[[Category:Saint John Lutheran Cemetery, Luana, Iowa]]

[[Category:St. John's Cemetery, Montgomery County, New York]]

Links

See: United States Cemeteries With Searchable Indexes.