Sun 14 Nov '21: My next eye surgery is scheduled for this Tuesday! This will be another general anesthesia surgery because that worked better for me before. I am really looking forward to having the vision corrected in both of my eyes because since having the 1st surgery in Oct, I've noticed that after reading or looking at any 1 thing very long, my eyes "tire" & things appear more blurry, the double/triple vision seems to worsen, etc. I never noticed a change like that before - I just attributed it to my poor vision in general & would do what I could. But this is a different feeling & really seems to greatly affect the vision in both of my eyes. It will be interesting to see the reaction after the large cataracts are gone from both of my eyes.
I had my last post op checkup on my R eye & my uncorrected vision went from 20/200 to 20/25! PTL!
That same visit was my pre op visit for the surgery on my L eye. That cataract has gotten worse & my vision in that eye is also 20/200.
Unfortunately the poor vision in my L eye has affected the good vision that I now have in my R eye. So it will be a very pleasant experience after this next surgery & my eye healing enough so that I no longer have dbl/triple/blurred vision & the complete haze that I see because of the cataract will be gone.
Very happy too that I scheduled the surgeries close together because having 1 good eye, but still straining with the other eye causes pretty unpleasant headaches.
It will certainly be a nice surprise to be able to see at least 20/25 in both eyes!

Wed 20 Oct '21: Thank you to my well wishers! It means a lot that you're thinking about &/or have been praying for me. The good thoughts & prayers are working. I saw the surgeon today & no longer have to use antibiotic eyedrops & steroid ones are reduced from 6 to 4 drops/day. 3 Drs(incl my surgeon) looked at my eye today, all said it looks like it's healing very well. They say as long as I'm comfortable doing it, I can drive when I want. (I stopped of my own accord b/c I didn't feel safe driving as poor as my vision was. Had my license renewed right before I quit driving almost 2 yrs ago.)
Eyes take longer to heal, so I still have to wear the eye patch for at least another week, use 4 steroid eyedrops/day, not lift anything over 10 to 15 lbs, no over exertion, etc.
The surgeon also gave me the initial OK for the next surgery next month. Thankfully they have me down for general anesthesia period & aren't going to try to do sedation after the extremely lengthy painful & unsuccessful attempt before. That should shorten my time there by abt 2 hrs.
I had 0 problems with any of the meds they gave me pre op, in the OR & post op and woke pretty quickly in recovery. So I'm hoping the next surgery will be as successful.
Hopefully my vision will be well enough within a week to work on corrections, edits, etc. Fingers crossed & God willing! :)

Mon 18 Oct: I tried making a few corrections, edits, etc that have been sent to me. It's a little too soon for that because It really strains my eyes. I'll get there & really appreciate your patience. Thank you!
The vision in my eye is getting better every day. Still harder to see b/c my pupil in that eye is smaller than the other. Also have to wear a clear eye patch & put drops in 6x/day & that makes it more difficult if my eyes or I are tired. This very small writing (on my device) makes it more challenging, but compared to the 20/200 vision I used to have in that eye, the change is amazing! Eyes supposedly take much longer to heal. That's ok, I'll baby it, follow my Drs orders & finally be able to see & drive again before too long! Totally worth it!

I had the 1st eye surgery yesterday (14 Oct '21). The nurses at the hosp tried so hard for well over an hour to find a way I could lay without being in unbearable pain. They were hoping that I could have the surgery done under sedation instead of general anesthesia. Even with Fentanyl it didn't help. They stood by my bed watching what looked to me like almost the entire IV bag drain into me & nothing, nada, zip. My pain level kept going up untill they stopped asking me to move around in the bed & they stopped trying to get me in the needed position for the surgery.
The anesthesiologist came by twice during the hour+ & said I would need general anesthesia.
That was a breeze. They took me in the surgical suite & the anesthesiologist had 3 medications that he gave to me via the IV in my arm. A few minutes later & I was out, woke up quickly in the recovery ward. They had done as I asked & rolled me off of my back onto my side (so nice & helped my pain level be not nearly as bad).
The had a diet soda y preference) & crackers by my bed & I was all over that cold drink! My throat didn't hurt at any point from being intubated. I asked to please go home & the nurse seemed a little surprised since it was fairly soon, but sure enough, the Dr said ok & they helped me get ready, back to my hubby & I was back home in my bed within less than 4 hrs.
Hope the next surgery in Nov goes as well!

~~Please restrict corrections, edits, etc. to 5 (or close to that) per day. Please know that there are many Find a Grave members who send suggestions, etc. & those can be dealt with in a better & easier way if I'm not inundated with a ton of suggestions from 1 individual each day.

~~Photos: I have posted thousands of pictures that I have either taken &/or ones that have been given to me. If I invited someone over to my home to look at my photo album (on my computer or in a binder), I would not expect that person to criticize the pictures, take them so they can use them as if they belonged to them or other similar totally unacceptable social behavior.
Sadly, when people are on their phones, computers, or whatever they use to go online, many times they feel emboldened to behave in ways that they most likely would never behave similarly if they were in public or had other people around who were paying attention to what they were doing.
It doesn't matter who or where you are - it is not acceptable to be rude, it is not acceptable to take pictures posted by others & use &/or repost them as you like without asking first.
Just because something is online does not make it "fair game" or "up for grabs" - copyright laws apply & good social behavior should be practiced regardless of whether you're interacting with people in person or you're online.

~~ Yesterday I discovered another web page/site (wasn't loading very well for me so idk the size of this page/site) that is using the name "Sassytazzy's Genealogy" .
I'm totally underwhelmed with the quantity of people that take their copying & use of others intellectual property, etc & start using the "pilfered" items as their own.

~~I'm scheduled to be in the hospital in the middle of Oct & again in Nov to be put under for cataract surgery on both of my eyes. The 1 w/ 20/200 vision is 1st in line. Apparently most people get cataract surgery done while they're awake & on an outpatient basis. They told me I have to have general anesthesia to have the surgery.
Praying this will solve 1 of my major problems. Not seeing well, seeing dbl & triple vision (both horizontal & vertical!) & not having to deal with "extra" headaches or eye pain after trying to read or research will be a wonderful blessing!

DO NOT SEND EDITS, ETC IN MY MESSAGES! ONLY send edits, corrections, additions, etc. FROM THE MEMORIAL ITSELF by clicking the SUGGEST EDITS button.
If you have information that does not "fit" into one of the fields provided, scroll down & there is a link to click for other information & you can type in that area. BUT don't send information using the "other" corrections that should be filled in the edit buttons that Find a Grave has provided!
I don't appreciate my email inbox being filled up with information that should have been done the right way.
Don't send me a long list of genealogy notes or list of census information for a memorial!
Take a few minutes & write a nice little biography.

It's really easy peasy - follow Find a Grave's instructions (or "fill in the blank" areas that become available to you after you hit the button to 'suggest an edit') for how to make corrections &/or additions might not get made.

Please also make sure edits, additions, corrections, etc. can be verified by online research with primary sources at sites like ancestry or FamilySearch. I try to make sure information sent for the memorials is reliable & I've been getting many edits about name changes, places of events, etc. that I can not verify no matter how long I spend researching it.
You don't have to send a source for every correction via email. Just please make sure the corrections can be found easily online, or if absolutely necessary, send the source information.
I just don't want to add assumed or incorrect information to a memorial. Please make sure it's proven by a reliable primary source & can be found by someone other than just yourself. Just stating "Census records from Ancestry" or something similar about another type of record is not a source.

Another issue is this is Find a Grave, not Ancestry. Ancestry is for placing your genealogy research, Find a Grave is for locating where someone is buried. I've been a genealogist for about 35 years now & I love the hobby. But I also realize that certain things belong in certain places & too many people go to great lengths to turn Find a Grave into their genealogy database. That is what Ancestry is for, not Find a Grave.
I joined Find a Grave & Ancestry when they were 2 separate entities (Jim Tipton owned Find a Grave) & that's when I created probably 99% of the memorials that I have made on Find a Grave. Back then, there was no place to link families on Find a Grave & many times I would use HTML coding to be able to "link" families because I thought if someone was looking for a particular person, they probably would be interested in quickly being able to click & see their other family members.
But Find a Grave is still exactly what the name states.
Family trees with all kinds of genealogy related information can be created on Ancestry or other genealogy sites. The memorials on Find a Grave should be made for people with known grave sites & the memorial page should focus on that particular person.
It's ok to send interesting "notes"&/or information about a person such as their families names, occupations, etc. It would be nice to have information written in a short biographical form if possible. These memorials are made for real people, please keep that in mind when sending information for their memorials. I will do my best to credit the members who send significant information that is put in the Biography section (& sometimes in other areas as applicable).

DO NOT SEND "Nastygrams". If you cannot communicate politely - Bye bye! don't communicate with me.
Nastygrams will be ignored or reported if you go too far.

For Find a Grave memorials that I'm not related to (or not sure that I'm related to), I started an ancestry. com tree for the research I do there on them. That database is public, called Taphophilia, Find a Grave Families & Misc & under my username, sassytazzy.
I've been a genealogist for 35+ yrs, a member of ancestry for 15+ years & this database is nowhere near that old, but I am trying to build it with the research I do on certain people. If you want to see it & can't find it, let me know & I'll send you a link.

Thank you so much to all of the kind & understanding Find a Grave members who have been returning the memorials I made for my family & others. I went through a very difficult time "getting used to" these illnesses that have forced me to change everything about my lifestyle & deal with the daily symptoms, including constant pain & unending fatigue. To me, each of the memorials I made represents the person it's for & I've always tried to make sure they're correct, they have all (in some cases most, I try not to put anything derogatory on a memorial despite what that person's history is) of the information that I can & make sure they all have flowers. The latter is an issue for the memorials that I uploaded via spreadsheet - I have to go thru the cemetery & put flowers on them that way.
To those who have refused to return any that they took to maintain - I'll be nicer & more understanding than you're apparently capable of & wish you never have any disabling illnesses similar to what I've had & hope you never have to endure the awful side effects & symptoms that I've been living with for years.
I do care about the memorials I've made & those in my care & I sincerely thank the people who have been so gracious to transfer the memorials I've requested & those who have gone through their records & returned all they could find without being asked.
If you have been transferred management of memorials that I made, especially any of my family memorials (they're most all marked by flowers I put on them stating "My family" or "My ancestor"), I would truly appreciate it if you would please transfer them back to me.

If I have made, or have management of a memorial for one of your family members (that is not my ancestor; but if it's a member of my family - those I'll deal w/ on a case by case basis if you'll state your relationship to them) & you would like the memorial transferred to you, please send me a request. I don't always favor my relationship to someone over another's. I may maintain a memorial for a distant cousin that I didn't know well or at all & someone may find the memorial who was a close friend or long time close neighbor of the person. That's a relationship, in my opinion & it counts. It certainly doesn't hurt to ask. I think the 4 generation Find a Grave "rule" is ok, but that leaves sooo many memorials 5+ generations back potentially not being maintained by a family member. I prefer memorials to be maintained by a family member, close friend, etc. So, like I said, it doesn't hurt to ask me if I would transfer a memorial to you if I have a memorial that isn't 1 of my ancestors or a relative that I'd prefer to keep. Also, I've found some memorials that were created by some of my Find a Grave friends that were being maintained by FaG that I requested to be transferred to me. If you are the creator & would like the memorials back, please let me know. Most I've taken to care for in the hopes that the original creators will return & I'll be able to give them back at least some of the memorials they created without a hassle.

Thank you so much!

A "flower" tidbit: The pink flowers that have "Rest in Peace" & "sassytazzy" on them and the large bouquet of very brightly colored flowers that I post on memorials are my "real" flowers. The pink ones are ones my husband grew in our flowerbed & the bouquet of brightly colored ones were given to me by a friend of my daughter's when she & I were both under the weather one day. If you see a little brown praying plush bear on a child's grave, that is my "Hope" Ty beanie baby in the picture. There could be a few more with a personal touch - those are what I can think of ATM.

3/2021 - I'm so very sorry that I've been inactive on the site for so long. The illnesses that I have got much worse in 2012 & continued to progressively worsen to the point where I pretty much just slept in bed all of the time. I wasn't deliberately ignoring anyone. It just got to where it was either too painful or I was too fatigued to even sit up in bed. I'm not well, but want to get back to my usual system of taking care of SACs & my memorials as soon as possible. Thanks so much for your understanding.

To my dismay, I've discovered that so many, 5,000+ - almost 1/3 of the memorials I made for my ancestors, family members & others over the years have been transferred to other people.
Apparently my email, which I used for my genealogy website, Find a Grave & other sites, went over the limit so it was deleted. I wasn't notified & had no clue that Find a Grave couldn't get in touch w/ me.
My parents, grandparents, great grandparents (great +), brother, aunts, uncles & cousins (including great+), in laws, etc. along with thousands of other memorials I made were transferred. That seriously exacerbated my anxiety & depression. Being sick for so long sucks & then having things like that happen just makes it worse because I know that if I hadn't gotten sick, maybe that wouldn't have happened? I couldn't control the tons of spam I got in that email acct, so maybe it would have? I wish there was an alternate way for Find a Grave to get in touch with us in case there's a problem.

I've spent countless hours making memorials for my family & others; trying to find as many as possible that I didn't have the location, take photos of their headstones if I could get to their graves & make memorials for them here as "my connection" to them. Not to mention the countless hours I've spent trying to research individuals I've made memorials for to get more information for them & hopefully link them to their families.
I've been linking people on this site with HTML links long before it was a feature on Find a Grave. All of that effort for my family as well as thousands+ of other people that I wasn't (to my knowledge) related to so hopefully their family members could find them. And the large amount of $ spent for cameras, sd cards, computers, computer equipment, gas, wear & tear on my car, etc. spent to travel to cemeteries in various places near & far from my home.
After knowing I was ill & being in daily pain along w/ having some other inconvenient symptoms, such as losing my balance frequently, I still went to nearby cemeteries (taking my son with me in case something happened where I would need help - he was a boy scout & seemed to enjoy wandering around - especially cemeteries like Hollywood in Richmond that have lots of hills & is a beautiful cemetery. He was a good sport to go with me so I could continue to visit graves & photograph headstones as long as I could.)
In addition to other illnesses, in 2019 I was diagnosed with 2 more illnesses - these are progressive & don't have cures. I would ask that people leave the memorials I've created with me until after I've passed away.
Many of the memorials I've seen that were transferred don't have anything added or fixed. And so far I've found 2 where the person had a memorial I made transferred to them, then remade the memorial & deleted the memorial I made (in 1 case cropping my name off of the photo I took & reusing that picture on the new memorial they made).
---------------------------
***I DON'T link to longtime "burial unknown" memorials. Find A Grave FAQs - "How do I add a memorial when I'm not sure what cemetery they are buried?
This is similar to adding a memorial for cremation. Do not create a new cemetery which does not exist in order to add these memorials. Location of body unknown should be used for recent deaths where the disposition is not currently known. Final disposition should be determined and updated within 30 days."
This is FIND a GRAVE, not guess a grave or plop a grave, not a family tree site, etc - make sure you know where someone is really buried before making a memorial and DON'T deliberately MAKE DUPLICATE MEMORIALS. It takes a lot of time to research, check to make sure the person isn't already listed & then make a memorial - I get quite annoyed when my time & effort is wasted because someone couldn't read & follow the basic rules of Find A Grave. I don't delete memorials I've made in favor of a duplicate that was made after mine. It's extremely annoying when I've located a person's grave, checked the cemetery to make sure they're not listed already & so I make a memorial. Then years later, I find my memorial was merged with 1 that was previously made? Where was that memorial hiding when I checked to make sure I wasn't duplicating anything? It was stuck in a "burial unknown" for years (you shouldn't have made the memorial to start with!) or it was "plopped" in a cemetery on a whim (again - you didn't know where they were really buried, you shouldn't have made the memorial!).

***I don't transfer to those who have a ton of "fake" memorials. People "plopped" into cemeteries where they aren't (or maybe aren't) buried, make "Guess a Graves" galore", deliberately make lots of duplicate memorials & the "fake" memorials (all those old "burial unknowns"), etc. unless the transfer request falls within the 4 generation FAG guidelines, or there's other good reasons. If you are one of the type listed at the beginning of #4, be sure to include your relationship to the person you're asking to be transferred to you.
If you have some of those b/c they were transferred to you, don't worry, that's easy to tell that you're maintaini g something you didn't create.
I do like getting memorials to where they're maintained by family or friends, but people who grossly abuse the site by not following the rules are a pet peeve of mine.
I wish all of our deceased family could have graves that can be found, but it's not right to make fake memorials just to link families or whatever other excuses people come up w/ for doing it.

***Photos that I've taken & posted on this site and my genealogy web site belong to me. They are NOT public domain and MAY NOT BE COPIED, with the exception that their family members are allowed to make one copy of a photo to maintain in their personal files for their personal use only (DO NOT post ANYWHERE online or anywhere else). They may not be republished in any form - Including reposting them on another FindAGrave memorial, anywhere online, or publishing in other way (I've found quite a few who didn't listen & copied & reposted here & elsewhere online & have them taken down each time I find them). If you have a web site and want the picture of the headstone on it, include a link to the FindAGrave memorial instead. To prevent any of the photos I have taken winding up in a publication that someone sells for personal profit, I maintain this policy (if I want my photos sold, I will do it myself). The only exception I can think of is if a well known reputable non profit organization (Historical society, Cemetery, etc). would like to use them in a publication where the profits are used to preserve records, restore cemeteries, something along those lines, please contact me with specific details as that is something I would consider allowing. I have the originals of the majority (probably all despite several computer & hard drive crashes) of the photos I have taken.
If you have a problem with that, consider PROFESSIONAL photographers. Their job is to take photos & their photos are automatically covered by copyright just as mine are. Photographs are a form of artwork.
(To the man who told me my pictures belonged more to the people buried in the grave instead of to me - *sigh* - do some legit research).
--------------------
I made memorials for all of the Confederate soldiers buried on Memorial Hill at Blandford Cemetery in Petersburg that I could find who didn't have them already.
The majority of the soldiers buried on Memorial Hill are either buried in unmarked graves or mass graves with 1 marker indicating they state they served from. I've seen so many requests for photos of headstones or graves of soldiers that are specifically marked as being buried on Memorial Hill.
I wish those requests could be filled, but they can't. The remains were brought to cemeteries like Blandford, usually by Ladies Associations who spent several year raising the funds to bring the soldiers back & if the remains could be identified, they most likely would have been buried in their own grave & it probably would have been marked - that would not put them on Memorial Hill.
There are many soldiers that were identified & they are buried in the various Wards & even if their grave isn't marked, Blandford has a record of the Ward, Section, Square, etc. as they do for civilians.
Petersburg was under siege from Jun 1864 to Apr 1865. "There are over 30,000 Confederate Soldiers buried on these grounds. Most are buried in mass graves without individual markers. They are buried by their State of origin when known. Those who could not be identified by name or state are buried with stone markers simply marked Unknown . . . "(source http://www.craterroad.com/memorialhill.html)

During the siege, Blandford Church was only approximately 3/4 of a mile away from the siege lines & was utilized as a hospital. A confederate redoubt stood approximately where Ward DD (new ground) is now. (source: National Register of Historic Places Application) During this time, most deceased soldiers were buried in temporary graves throughout Petersburg or where they died & later moved to Blandford after the war.

If you have an extra moment, pls visit the memorial for a wonderful young man, Jack Williams. He was a 15-year-old Boy Scout who volunteered at the temporary hospital set up at John Marshall High School during the Influenza epidemic of 1918. According to the cemetery website, he worked "until he was exhausted, he died of influenza".

~~ P.S. -- Hugs & thanks to my awesome Find a Grave friends that have taken pics for me, given more info about entries I've made & just been all around wonderful people period :)

Sun 14 Nov '21: My next eye surgery is scheduled for this Tuesday! This will be another general anesthesia surgery because that worked better for me before. I am really looking forward to having the vision corrected in both of my eyes because since having the 1st surgery in Oct, I've noticed that after reading or looking at any 1 thing very long, my eyes "tire" & things appear more blurry, the double/triple vision seems to worsen, etc. I never noticed a change like that before - I just attributed it to my poor vision in general & would do what I could. But this is a different feeling & really seems to greatly affect the vision in both of my eyes. It will be interesting to see the reaction after the large cataracts are gone from both of my eyes.
I had my last post op checkup on my R eye & my uncorrected vision went from 20/200 to 20/25! PTL!
That same visit was my pre op visit for the surgery on my L eye. That cataract has gotten worse & my vision in that eye is also 20/200.
Unfortunately the poor vision in my L eye has affected the good vision that I now have in my R eye. So it will be a very pleasant experience after this next surgery & my eye healing enough so that I no longer have dbl/triple/blurred vision & the complete haze that I see because of the cataract will be gone.
Very happy too that I scheduled the surgeries close together because having 1 good eye, but still straining with the other eye causes pretty unpleasant headaches.
It will certainly be a nice surprise to be able to see at least 20/25 in both eyes!

Wed 20 Oct '21: Thank you to my well wishers! It means a lot that you're thinking about &/or have been praying for me. The good thoughts & prayers are working. I saw the surgeon today & no longer have to use antibiotic eyedrops & steroid ones are reduced from 6 to 4 drops/day. 3 Drs(incl my surgeon) looked at my eye today, all said it looks like it's healing very well. They say as long as I'm comfortable doing it, I can drive when I want. (I stopped of my own accord b/c I didn't feel safe driving as poor as my vision was. Had my license renewed right before I quit driving almost 2 yrs ago.)
Eyes take longer to heal, so I still have to wear the eye patch for at least another week, use 4 steroid eyedrops/day, not lift anything over 10 to 15 lbs, no over exertion, etc.
The surgeon also gave me the initial OK for the next surgery next month. Thankfully they have me down for general anesthesia period & aren't going to try to do sedation after the extremely lengthy painful & unsuccessful attempt before. That should shorten my time there by abt 2 hrs.
I had 0 problems with any of the meds they gave me pre op, in the OR & post op and woke pretty quickly in recovery. So I'm hoping the next surgery will be as successful.
Hopefully my vision will be well enough within a week to work on corrections, edits, etc. Fingers crossed & God willing! :)

Mon 18 Oct: I tried making a few corrections, edits, etc that have been sent to me. It's a little too soon for that because It really strains my eyes. I'll get there & really appreciate your patience. Thank you!
The vision in my eye is getting better every day. Still harder to see b/c my pupil in that eye is smaller than the other. Also have to wear a clear eye patch & put drops in 6x/day & that makes it more difficult if my eyes or I are tired. This very small writing (on my device) makes it more challenging, but compared to the 20/200 vision I used to have in that eye, the change is amazing! Eyes supposedly take much longer to heal. That's ok, I'll baby it, follow my Drs orders & finally be able to see & drive again before too long! Totally worth it!

I had the 1st eye surgery yesterday (14 Oct '21). The nurses at the hosp tried so hard for well over an hour to find a way I could lay without being in unbearable pain. They were hoping that I could have the surgery done under sedation instead of general anesthesia. Even with Fentanyl it didn't help. They stood by my bed watching what looked to me like almost the entire IV bag drain into me & nothing, nada, zip. My pain level kept going up untill they stopped asking me to move around in the bed & they stopped trying to get me in the needed position for the surgery.
The anesthesiologist came by twice during the hour+ & said I would need general anesthesia.
That was a breeze. They took me in the surgical suite & the anesthesiologist had 3 medications that he gave to me via the IV in my arm. A few minutes later & I was out, woke up quickly in the recovery ward. They had done as I asked & rolled me off of my back onto my side (so nice & helped my pain level be not nearly as bad).
The had a diet soda y preference) & crackers by my bed & I was all over that cold drink! My throat didn't hurt at any point from being intubated. I asked to please go home & the nurse seemed a little surprised since it was fairly soon, but sure enough, the Dr said ok & they helped me get ready, back to my hubby & I was back home in my bed within less than 4 hrs.
Hope the next surgery in Nov goes as well!

~~Please restrict corrections, edits, etc. to 5 (or close to that) per day. Please know that there are many Find a Grave members who send suggestions, etc. & those can be dealt with in a better & easier way if I'm not inundated with a ton of suggestions from 1 individual each day.

~~Photos: I have posted thousands of pictures that I have either taken &/or ones that have been given to me. If I invited someone over to my home to look at my photo album (on my computer or in a binder), I would not expect that person to criticize the pictures, take them so they can use them as if they belonged to them or other similar totally unacceptable social behavior.
Sadly, when people are on their phones, computers, or whatever they use to go online, many times they feel emboldened to behave in ways that they most likely would never behave similarly if they were in public or had other people around who were paying attention to what they were doing.
It doesn't matter who or where you are - it is not acceptable to be rude, it is not acceptable to take pictures posted by others & use &/or repost them as you like without asking first.
Just because something is online does not make it "fair game" or "up for grabs" - copyright laws apply & good social behavior should be practiced regardless of whether you're interacting with people in person or you're online.

~~ Yesterday I discovered another web page/site (wasn't loading very well for me so idk the size of this page/site) that is using the name "Sassytazzy's Genealogy" .
I'm totally underwhelmed with the quantity of people that take their copying & use of others intellectual property, etc & start using the "pilfered" items as their own.

~~I'm scheduled to be in the hospital in the middle of Oct & again in Nov to be put under for cataract surgery on both of my eyes. The 1 w/ 20/200 vision is 1st in line. Apparently most people get cataract surgery done while they're awake & on an outpatient basis. They told me I have to have general anesthesia to have the surgery.
Praying this will solve 1 of my major problems. Not seeing well, seeing dbl & triple vision (both horizontal & vertical!) & not having to deal with "extra" headaches or eye pain after trying to read or research will be a wonderful blessing!

DO NOT SEND EDITS, ETC IN MY MESSAGES! ONLY send edits, corrections, additions, etc. FROM THE MEMORIAL ITSELF by clicking the SUGGEST EDITS button.
If you have information that does not "fit" into one of the fields provided, scroll down & there is a link to click for other information & you can type in that area. BUT don't send information using the "other" corrections that should be filled in the edit buttons that Find a Grave has provided!
I don't appreciate my email inbox being filled up with information that should have been done the right way.
Don't send me a long list of genealogy notes or list of census information for a memorial!
Take a few minutes & write a nice little biography.

It's really easy peasy - follow Find a Grave's instructions (or "fill in the blank" areas that become available to you after you hit the button to 'suggest an edit') for how to make corrections &/or additions might not get made.

Please also make sure edits, additions, corrections, etc. can be verified by online research with primary sources at sites like ancestry or FamilySearch. I try to make sure information sent for the memorials is reliable & I've been getting many edits about name changes, places of events, etc. that I can not verify no matter how long I spend researching it.
You don't have to send a source for every correction via email. Just please make sure the corrections can be found easily online, or if absolutely necessary, send the source information.
I just don't want to add assumed or incorrect information to a memorial. Please make sure it's proven by a reliable primary source & can be found by someone other than just yourself. Just stating "Census records from Ancestry" or something similar about another type of record is not a source.

Another issue is this is Find a Grave, not Ancestry. Ancestry is for placing your genealogy research, Find a Grave is for locating where someone is buried. I've been a genealogist for about 35 years now & I love the hobby. But I also realize that certain things belong in certain places & too many people go to great lengths to turn Find a Grave into their genealogy database. That is what Ancestry is for, not Find a Grave.
I joined Find a Grave & Ancestry when they were 2 separate entities (Jim Tipton owned Find a Grave) & that's when I created probably 99% of the memorials that I have made on Find a Grave. Back then, there was no place to link families on Find a Grave & many times I would use HTML coding to be able to "link" families because I thought if someone was looking for a particular person, they probably would be interested in quickly being able to click & see their other family members.
But Find a Grave is still exactly what the name states.
Family trees with all kinds of genealogy related information can be created on Ancestry or other genealogy sites. The memorials on Find a Grave should be made for people with known grave sites & the memorial page should focus on that particular person.
It's ok to send interesting "notes"&/or information about a person such as their families names, occupations, etc. It would be nice to have information written in a short biographical form if possible. These memorials are made for real people, please keep that in mind when sending information for their memorials. I will do my best to credit the members who send significant information that is put in the Biography section (& sometimes in other areas as applicable).

DO NOT SEND "Nastygrams". If you cannot communicate politely - Bye bye! don't communicate with me.
Nastygrams will be ignored or reported if you go too far.

For Find a Grave memorials that I'm not related to (or not sure that I'm related to), I started an ancestry. com tree for the research I do there on them. That database is public, called Taphophilia, Find a Grave Families & Misc & under my username, sassytazzy.
I've been a genealogist for 35+ yrs, a member of ancestry for 15+ years & this database is nowhere near that old, but I am trying to build it with the research I do on certain people. If you want to see it & can't find it, let me know & I'll send you a link.

Thank you so much to all of the kind & understanding Find a Grave members who have been returning the memorials I made for my family & others. I went through a very difficult time "getting used to" these illnesses that have forced me to change everything about my lifestyle & deal with the daily symptoms, including constant pain & unending fatigue. To me, each of the memorials I made represents the person it's for & I've always tried to make sure they're correct, they have all (in some cases most, I try not to put anything derogatory on a memorial despite what that person's history is) of the information that I can & make sure they all have flowers. The latter is an issue for the memorials that I uploaded via spreadsheet - I have to go thru the cemetery & put flowers on them that way.
To those who have refused to return any that they took to maintain - I'll be nicer & more understanding than you're apparently capable of & wish you never have any disabling illnesses similar to what I've had & hope you never have to endure the awful side effects & symptoms that I've been living with for years.
I do care about the memorials I've made & those in my care & I sincerely thank the people who have been so gracious to transfer the memorials I've requested & those who have gone through their records & returned all they could find without being asked.
If you have been transferred management of memorials that I made, especially any of my family memorials (they're most all marked by flowers I put on them stating "My family" or "My ancestor"), I would truly appreciate it if you would please transfer them back to me.

If I have made, or have management of a memorial for one of your family members (that is not my ancestor; but if it's a member of my family - those I'll deal w/ on a case by case basis if you'll state your relationship to them) & you would like the memorial transferred to you, please send me a request. I don't always favor my relationship to someone over another's. I may maintain a memorial for a distant cousin that I didn't know well or at all & someone may find the memorial who was a close friend or long time close neighbor of the person. That's a relationship, in my opinion & it counts. It certainly doesn't hurt to ask. I think the 4 generation Find a Grave "rule" is ok, but that leaves sooo many memorials 5+ generations back potentially not being maintained by a family member. I prefer memorials to be maintained by a family member, close friend, etc. So, like I said, it doesn't hurt to ask me if I would transfer a memorial to you if I have a memorial that isn't 1 of my ancestors or a relative that I'd prefer to keep. Also, I've found some memorials that were created by some of my Find a Grave friends that were being maintained by FaG that I requested to be transferred to me. If you are the creator & would like the memorials back, please let me know. Most I've taken to care for in the hopes that the original creators will return & I'll be able to give them back at least some of the memorials they created without a hassle.

Thank you so much!

A "flower" tidbit: The pink flowers that have "Rest in Peace" & "sassytazzy" on them and the large bouquet of very brightly colored flowers that I post on memorials are my "real" flowers. The pink ones are ones my husband grew in our flowerbed & the bouquet of brightly colored ones were given to me by a friend of my daughter's when she & I were both under the weather one day. If you see a little brown praying plush bear on a child's grave, that is my "Hope" Ty beanie baby in the picture. There could be a few more with a personal touch - those are what I can think of ATM.

3/2021 - I'm so very sorry that I've been inactive on the site for so long. The illnesses that I have got much worse in 2012 & continued to progressively worsen to the point where I pretty much just slept in bed all of the time. I wasn't deliberately ignoring anyone. It just got to where it was either too painful or I was too fatigued to even sit up in bed. I'm not well, but want to get back to my usual system of taking care of SACs & my memorials as soon as possible. Thanks so much for your understanding.

To my dismay, I've discovered that so many, 5,000+ - almost 1/3 of the memorials I made for my ancestors, family members & others over the years have been transferred to other people.
Apparently my email, which I used for my genealogy website, Find a Grave & other sites, went over the limit so it was deleted. I wasn't notified & had no clue that Find a Grave couldn't get in touch w/ me.
My parents, grandparents, great grandparents (great +), brother, aunts, uncles & cousins (including great+), in laws, etc. along with thousands of other memorials I made were transferred. That seriously exacerbated my anxiety & depression. Being sick for so long sucks & then having things like that happen just makes it worse because I know that if I hadn't gotten sick, maybe that wouldn't have happened? I couldn't control the tons of spam I got in that email acct, so maybe it would have? I wish there was an alternate way for Find a Grave to get in touch with us in case there's a problem.

I've spent countless hours making memorials for my family & others; trying to find as many as possible that I didn't have the location, take photos of their headstones if I could get to their graves & make memorials for them here as "my connection" to them. Not to mention the countless hours I've spent trying to research individuals I've made memorials for to get more information for them & hopefully link them to their families.
I've been linking people on this site with HTML links long before it was a feature on Find a Grave. All of that effort for my family as well as thousands+ of other people that I wasn't (to my knowledge) related to so hopefully their family members could find them. And the large amount of $ spent for cameras, sd cards, computers, computer equipment, gas, wear & tear on my car, etc. spent to travel to cemeteries in various places near & far from my home.
After knowing I was ill & being in daily pain along w/ having some other inconvenient symptoms, such as losing my balance frequently, I still went to nearby cemeteries (taking my son with me in case something happened where I would need help - he was a boy scout & seemed to enjoy wandering around - especially cemeteries like Hollywood in Richmond that have lots of hills & is a beautiful cemetery. He was a good sport to go with me so I could continue to visit graves & photograph headstones as long as I could.)
In addition to other illnesses, in 2019 I was diagnosed with 2 more illnesses - these are progressive & don't have cures. I would ask that people leave the memorials I've created with me until after I've passed away.
Many of the memorials I've seen that were transferred don't have anything added or fixed. And so far I've found 2 where the person had a memorial I made transferred to them, then remade the memorial & deleted the memorial I made (in 1 case cropping my name off of the photo I took & reusing that picture on the new memorial they made).
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***I DON'T link to longtime "burial unknown" memorials. Find A Grave FAQs - "How do I add a memorial when I'm not sure what cemetery they are buried?
This is similar to adding a memorial for cremation. Do not create a new cemetery which does not exist in order to add these memorials. Location of body unknown should be used for recent deaths where the disposition is not currently known. Final disposition should be determined and updated within 30 days."
This is FIND a GRAVE, not guess a grave or plop a grave, not a family tree site, etc - make sure you know where someone is really buried before making a memorial and DON'T deliberately MAKE DUPLICATE MEMORIALS. It takes a lot of time to research, check to make sure the person isn't already listed & then make a memorial - I get quite annoyed when my time & effort is wasted because someone couldn't read & follow the basic rules of Find A Grave. I don't delete memorials I've made in favor of a duplicate that was made after mine. It's extremely annoying when I've located a person's grave, checked the cemetery to make sure they're not listed already & so I make a memorial. Then years later, I find my memorial was merged with 1 that was previously made? Where was that memorial hiding when I checked to make sure I wasn't duplicating anything? It was stuck in a "burial unknown" for years (you shouldn't have made the memorial to start with!) or it was "plopped" in a cemetery on a whim (again - you didn't know where they were really buried, you shouldn't have made the memorial!).

***I don't transfer to those who have a ton of "fake" memorials. People "plopped" into cemeteries where they aren't (or maybe aren't) buried, make "Guess a Graves" galore", deliberately make lots of duplicate memorials & the "fake" memorials (all those old "burial unknowns"), etc. unless the transfer request falls within the 4 generation FAG guidelines, or there's other good reasons. If you are one of the type listed at the beginning of #4, be sure to include your relationship to the person you're asking to be transferred to you.
If you have some of those b/c they were transferred to you, don't worry, that's easy to tell that you're maintaini g something you didn't create.
I do like getting memorials to where they're maintained by family or friends, but people who grossly abuse the site by not following the rules are a pet peeve of mine.
I wish all of our deceased family could have graves that can be found, but it's not right to make fake memorials just to link families or whatever other excuses people come up w/ for doing it.

***Photos that I've taken & posted on this site and my genealogy web site belong to me. They are NOT public domain and MAY NOT BE COPIED, with the exception that their family members are allowed to make one copy of a photo to maintain in their personal files for their personal use only (DO NOT post ANYWHERE online or anywhere else). They may not be republished in any form - Including reposting them on another FindAGrave memorial, anywhere online, or publishing in other way (I've found quite a few who didn't listen & copied & reposted here & elsewhere online & have them taken down each time I find them). If you have a web site and want the picture of the headstone on it, include a link to the FindAGrave memorial instead. To prevent any of the photos I have taken winding up in a publication that someone sells for personal profit, I maintain this policy (if I want my photos sold, I will do it myself). The only exception I can think of is if a well known reputable non profit organization (Historical society, Cemetery, etc). would like to use them in a publication where the profits are used to preserve records, restore cemeteries, something along those lines, please contact me with specific details as that is something I would consider allowing. I have the originals of the majority (probably all despite several computer & hard drive crashes) of the photos I have taken.
If you have a problem with that, consider PROFESSIONAL photographers. Their job is to take photos & their photos are automatically covered by copyright just as mine are. Photographs are a form of artwork.
(To the man who told me my pictures belonged more to the people buried in the grave instead of to me - *sigh* - do some legit research).
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I made memorials for all of the Confederate soldiers buried on Memorial Hill at Blandford Cemetery in Petersburg that I could find who didn't have them already.
The majority of the soldiers buried on Memorial Hill are either buried in unmarked graves or mass graves with 1 marker indicating they state they served from. I've seen so many requests for photos of headstones or graves of soldiers that are specifically marked as being buried on Memorial Hill.
I wish those requests could be filled, but they can't. The remains were brought to cemeteries like Blandford, usually by Ladies Associations who spent several year raising the funds to bring the soldiers back & if the remains could be identified, they most likely would have been buried in their own grave & it probably would have been marked - that would not put them on Memorial Hill.
There are many soldiers that were identified & they are buried in the various Wards & even if their grave isn't marked, Blandford has a record of the Ward, Section, Square, etc. as they do for civilians.
Petersburg was under siege from Jun 1864 to Apr 1865. "There are over 30,000 Confederate Soldiers buried on these grounds. Most are buried in mass graves without individual markers. They are buried by their State of origin when known. Those who could not be identified by name or state are buried with stone markers simply marked Unknown . . . "(source http://www.craterroad.com/memorialhill.html)

During the siege, Blandford Church was only approximately 3/4 of a mile away from the siege lines & was utilized as a hospital. A confederate redoubt stood approximately where Ward DD (new ground) is now. (source: National Register of Historic Places Application) During this time, most deceased soldiers were buried in temporary graves throughout Petersburg or where they died & later moved to Blandford after the war.

If you have an extra moment, pls visit the memorial for a wonderful young man, Jack Williams. He was a 15-year-old Boy Scout who volunteered at the temporary hospital set up at John Marshall High School during the Influenza epidemic of 1918. According to the cemetery website, he worked "until he was exhausted, he died of influenza".

~~ P.S. -- Hugs & thanks to my awesome Find a Grave friends that have taken pics for me, given more info about entries I've made & just been all around wonderful people period :)