Hello all! US Black Heritage Project is partnering with the Laurel Cemetery Memorial Project to document all those laid to rest at Laurel Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland.
Unfortunately, this African-American cemetery was paved over without moving the majority of those buried. Only a few hundred were moved before a shopping center was laid on top. Originally it was thought there were about 5000 buried in this cemetery, but researchers have found more than 19,000 based on death records and estimate the numbers will reach as high as 30,000!
Our goal is to create a WikiTree profile for each person buried at Laurel so they won't be forgotten. Then we want to add as much family as possible so descendants will know where their ancestors are buried.
This is a huge project, so we expect it to take a while to complete. But if many people help, we can get it finished.
If you would like to help, please:
- Ask for access to the spreadsheet with the list of the first 16,000 names. Please put your Wiki-ID in the note box when requesting access.
- Put your Wiki-ID next to the person you will be working on.
- Find additional sources if available. Then create the profile, adding all found sources.
- There are links to the death certificates on the resources tab.
- Add the cemetery category and the sticker (both found on the space page and the spreadsheet resource tab). Add the {{African-American Sticker}} .
- If they were born before emancipation, please add the category [[Category: USBH Heritage Exchange]] .
- Put the new Wiki-ID on the spreadsheet.
- If you have time, add their close family as well. Add the descendant sticker and category to any profiles of descendants created. (both are found on the space page and the spreadsheet resource tab).
- If you are familiar with creating Find A Grave memorials, please create their FindAG memorial as well and add the # to the spreadsheet. Please write on the memorial notes that no headstone exists since the cemetery was paved over without moving the people or the headstones.
- Repeat!
