MICHELLE WILLARD, Post Staff Writer
Posted: Sunday, August 9, 2009 7:42 am

Genealogist Patsy Paterson poses in Williams Cemetery next to the marker for Capt. Nick Lamb, a Confederate who was killed in the Battle of Franklin. Photo Submitted.

Vandals may have tried to destroy historic markers in Evergreen Cemetery last week, but progress is the real threat to most historic cemeteries in Rutherford County.

In the past few years, development has swallowed up vast tracts of rural farmland turning it into subdivisions, retail centers and more.

Even though the development brought in many conveniences and cemented a ranking as one of the fastest growing counties in the nation, it also swallowed bits and pieces of the county’s historic and cultural resources in the progress.

“It is extremely important to document and record our cultural resources before they are paved over by progress,” said John Lodl, director of the Rutherford County Archives.

One specific resource lost to time and progress is historic cemeteries. Houses and gas stations replace old family plots that are often forgotten as people move away, or simply die out.

“This is happening all over our country. Progress is removing our old cemeteries,” Teresa Ghee Elliot explained.

Elliot said she is not against progress in the least, but she wants to preserve historic graveyards for her children and other genealogists.

A Rutherford County native, Elliot preserves historic cemeteries from her Alabama home, where she runs the Web site Rutherford County, TN Cemeteries, which can be found at rutherfordcemetery.wordpress.com. She works with other volunteers, like Patsy Paterson, to post photographs of historic cemeteries in Rutherford County.

Paterson said her photography started with genealogy. Her family research led her to cemeteries that were in poor shape, and she started photographing them to document what was there before it was gone.

“It might be only way some people can see them and some of them are just crumbling,” she said.

Paterson mostly photographs Rutherford County cemeteries, but she has contributed more than 10,000 photos to another Website, findagrave.com.

Like Paterson, Elliot’s passion for preservation started with genealogy. Her fascination with genealogy began as a child, but she didn’t start in earnest until after her first child was born, she explained.

Elliot would go out with her father and visit family graves in Rutherford County. In fact, the first grave she photographed was on Halloween 1991 in Rockvale’s Benagea Carlton Cemetery.

“From there, we'd photograph a cemetery whenever I'd find a new ancestor,” she said.

Later, her husband suggested she put her photos on the Internet to share with others. But the Web site became too hard to manage with multiple contributors, so Elliot turned it into a blog where volunteers can post their own photographs and research.

Elliot said the new blog is also easily searchable. Visitors can post comments and add information about the cemeteries and ancestors as well.

“Another thing about the blog is that readers can get it via RSS. That means they can get new posts in their inbox each morning instead of having to go to the blog to read it,” she said.

The site eases access to information that previously was only found in libraries and archives.

Lodl said people come into the county archives everyday looking for the final resting places of ancestors.

“Nine times out of 10 we can help them in their search,” Lodl said.

Elliot wants to help genealogists and at least digitally preserve the cemeteries through her Web site.

She explained the difficulty of searching for ancestors, only to find their graves are gone and replaced by subdivisions.

Genealogists typically search through local libraries and archives to locate any scrap of information they can about relatives.

Only of the most consulted books on Rutherford County cemeteries is a 1975 tome by the Rutherford County Historical Society.

“Imagine looking for your ancestor who fought in the Civil War …” she said. “Now imagine driving to that cemetery (documented in the book) and not being able to find that graveyard. Instead, you find subdivisions. You see kids playing. You drive and walk and ask around, but nowhere do you see any evidence of a cemetery that was there just 34 years ago.

“So we photograph the stones,” she said. “They will be preserved, easily searchable and viewable no matter where you sit in the world.”

The Web site is also free of some of the pitfalls of an actual graveyard, like snakes, mosquitoes and big dogs, she added.

“That is why we do this,” Elliot continued. “As a permanent memorial to those who have gone before us that cannot be torn down by weather, acid rain, cows, bulldozers, (or) four-wheelers.”

Michelle Willard can be contacted at 615-869-0816 or mwillard@murfreesboropost.com.

On the Web …
rutherfordcemetery.wordpress.com.
findagrave.com