Blogger Develops A Grave Interest in Cemeteries

What started as a passing interest, became a blog, and then developed into a passion. Cemetery blogger, Joy Neighbors travels the South and Midwest taking photos of cemeteries and speaking about the topic.

This Thursday, September 1, Joy Neighbors will be speaking at the Pike County, Indiana Genealogical Society in Petersburg, Indiana. Her hour-long presentation begins at 7 P.M. at the Pike County Public Library. She will speak about gravestone symbolism and learning how to read the "Silent Language of the Stones."

Neighbors spoke last month at the National Midwest Family History Expo in Kansas City, Kansas on the topic of cemetery research. She is scheduled to present a one-day workshop, October 15th, to the Knox County Genealogical Society in Vincennes, Indiana. The afternoon sessions will include 'A Grave Interest, Digging Up Cemetery Research," the "Silent Language of the Stones" about reading symbols, and "Having the Last Say, Epitaphs and History." Neighbors is also scheduled to speak in November in Rochester, New York.

"This is something that I become more passionate about every time I go to a cemetery," Neighbors remarked. "There's so much history to explore, and so much to tell after an afternoon spent reading and photographing the stones. And I always learn something. I did a blog a couple of weeks ago about dowsing for graves. Now that's just another aspect of the trip!"

Neighbors is the marketing director for Acres of Land Winery and Restaurant, a small Kentucky winery, by day, and a cemetery-history-genealogy blogger/speaker by night, and weekend. She began the blog, A Grave Interest, as a place to share cemetery history, lore, photos and genealogy information. Neighbors says she would love to one day develop it into a full time career of writing and speaking.
"It is so much fun to go out and share something your passionate about with other people who have the same interests. And cemetery people really understand this!"

Neighbors can be contacted on her web site JoyNeighbors.com or on FaceBook at A Grave Interest, about her blog, or speaking opportunities.