Case closed in cemetery mystery
Grave cleaner discovered as amateur online genealogist
A puzzling case of who, and why, nearly 200 historic graves were shoddily cleaned without permission in Davidsonville was solved Wednesday when several of the graves popped up on the volunteer amateur genealogy website “Billion Graves.”
Public interest in genealogy — the study of family lineage and history — falls in and out of popularity in “spurts,” said Tina Simmons, a 30-year member and cemetery committee chair of nonprofit Anne Arundel Genealogical Society.
In 2021, mobile apps and websites like “Billion Graves” and “Find A Grave” allow volunteers to upload information and photos online for people researching their family history.
Cemetery committee members at All Hallows Episcopal Church and at Davidsonville United Methodist Church, located down the street, suspected the culprit who wiped away century-old dirt from the tombstones did so to use the information in an online grave database. Hundreds of the stones were wiped over their inscribed names and dates with an unknown chemical that left bright white strips against dark, weathered stone.
Tim Hopkins, of United Methodist Church, described the markings as “zebra” stripes that could only be fixed by washing down the entire headstone. Bridget Blake and Joan Placido, of All Hallows, estimate cleaning all the headstones will cost upwards of $10,000.
One of two women who washed the graves came forward on Thursday and called the parish at All Hallows after tombstone photos were published on Billion Graves the previous day, Blake said. The woman met with the Rev. Jeff Hual and cemetery committee members for an hour and a half in a meeting that was described as “good.”
He declined to identify the woman and said they were still discussing how to find a resolution for the damage.
“She was truly contrite about what had happened. She was saddened by the fact that she loves genealogy and history and did not know that she was doing harm,” Hual said. “And that she had done such harm to something she actually loves.”
A day for volunteers across the county to help repair the graves by cleaning them thoroughly is being planned for the spring. Simmons said one of the main goals of
genealogy groups and cemetery committees is to educate residents on the proper way to treat aging stones and historic grave plots. The cleanup day would focus on teaching amateur genealogists proper methods.
Among the All Hallows graves scoured and photographed to Billion Graves is the headstone of Mary Mackall, who died in a fire in 1862. The parish cemetery committee recently spent $3,500 repairing the headstone that had crumbled because of old age.
Anne Arundel County residents shared their theory of what happened in the cemetery after reading about it in The Capital. Some believed the wash was part of a Tik Tok trend.
Others, like Find A Grave website administrator Tracey Goodwin, tried to clear the website’s nam
The website has a few photos in their authentic dirty color from All Hallow’s cemetery but they date back to 2015 and earlier.
“Many longtime volunteers always advocate to not touch anything that does not belong to you or that you do not have the training and permission to do,” Goodwin wrote in an email.
Cathy Wallace, special project coordinator for Billion Graves, said volunteers who use the company’s app get permission to take photos of headstones in private cemeteries.
Although the website has a store that offers gravestone cleaning supplies, she sympathized with how upset a cemetery committee would be if its graves were scrubbed and documented without permission.
Billion Graves sells “Gravestone Cleaning Kits” with brushes and D2 solution, a non-damaging masonry cleaner. More than 40 million graves have been uploaded to the website from numerous countries, Wallace said.
“We don’t have anything to do with volunteers cleaning gravestones,” Wallace said. “Billion Graves mission is to photograph and then transcribe by recording names and dates so that people can grow their family trees for genealogy.”