Suzanneiom
master brummie
Hi everyone, I hope this post is okay.
I’ve been researching my family tree for many years, but I’ve really immersed myself in it over the last 18 months. Through that journey, I started volunteering with Find a Grave, where I’ve spent the past year and a half photographing and documenting graves to help families preserve the memory of their loved ones.
One day, someone asked if I could clean a headstone so the inscription could be read more easily. That sparked a whole new passion. Since then, I’ve been trained by someone who runs their own professional headstone cleaning business, and I’ve been voluntarily cleaning headstones ever since.
With permission from the church I attend (which I actually started attending through my interest in family history), I’ve been able to help restore a number of memorials. I mainly clean granite and marble headstones, particularly those that have become heavily stained or blackened over time. I generally avoid limestone and sandstone memorials, as they can be much more fragile and require specialist conservation.
At the moment I do this entirely voluntarily because I genuinely enjoy giving something back. I’ve cleaned several of my own family headstones, as well as memorials for other families, and in the future I hope to turn it into a small business.
If anyone here has a family headstone that is in need of a clean, please feel free to send me a message. I’d be more than happy to help, completely free of charge. The only thing I ask is that you’re happy for me to share before-and-after photos on my Instagram page to show the work (always respectfully, of course).
I hope this post is okay, and I’ll add a few examples of my work below.
I’ve been researching my family tree for many years, but I’ve really immersed myself in it over the last 18 months. Through that journey, I started volunteering with Find a Grave, where I’ve spent the past year and a half photographing and documenting graves to help families preserve the memory of their loved ones.
One day, someone asked if I could clean a headstone so the inscription could be read more easily. That sparked a whole new passion. Since then, I’ve been trained by someone who runs their own professional headstone cleaning business, and I’ve been voluntarily cleaning headstones ever since.
With permission from the church I attend (which I actually started attending through my interest in family history), I’ve been able to help restore a number of memorials. I mainly clean granite and marble headstones, particularly those that have become heavily stained or blackened over time. I generally avoid limestone and sandstone memorials, as they can be much more fragile and require specialist conservation.
At the moment I do this entirely voluntarily because I genuinely enjoy giving something back. I’ve cleaned several of my own family headstones, as well as memorials for other families, and in the future I hope to turn it into a small business.
If anyone here has a family headstone that is in need of a clean, please feel free to send me a message. I’d be more than happy to help, completely free of charge. The only thing I ask is that you’re happy for me to share before-and-after photos on my Instagram page to show the work (always respectfully, of course).
I hope this post is okay, and I’ll add a few examples of my work below.
