I'm located in Central Illinois and try my best to help work on and research memorials and cemeteries within my area. I will happily transfer a memorial to those who ask, so long as it isn't of a close relative of mine, as I request memorials from others from time to time. I will attempt to research any information suggested to me before accepting it, as I try to be as accurate as possible and I try to include sources.

My Paternal family surnames are: Rhodes, Gore, Hinkle, Sexton, Mitchell, Hartline, Dennis, Johnson, Spoonamore, and others. My maternal family surnames are Hobbs, Quick, Pickens, Bowling, Montgomery, Keys, Corder, Harber, and others. I am a descendant of the Gores that founded Goreville, Illinois.

I have family that reside throughout Illinois and Oklahoma, focusing on Central Illinois, Southern Illinois, and very southern Oklahoma, among other sporadic locations like any family tree has.

Genealogy is not just a hobby for me, but a passion. I strive to research and document my ancestors and am currently working on physically documenting my progress to share with generations to come. I also love photography, so I love to go out and photograph headstones individually, so as to help get those memorial pages with no photos taken care of.

Not only do I love researching my family tree, but I also love visiting and photographing cemeteries in a very respectful, calm and peaceful way. Call me crazy, but when I photograph headstones, I read out loud the names of those who rest there, and talk to them as if they were there. I never want anyone to be forgotten, no matter what they did in life. They were once humans, just like you and I.

Also, I love to purchase old books. Currently, my oldest is the Early Settlers of Sangamon County, written by John Carroll Power, published in 1876. I've lived in Sangamon county majority of my life, so I'm familiar with many of the areas mentioned in the book. I love when I read about a person who's grave I'd visited previous to reading about them. It almost feels like you're reading about someone you know!

With my old books, I love to go through them thoroughly and find the deceased within those pages on here, as well as other favorite research sites, and offer any potentially missing information.

While I do know that what I'm offering is suggestion, based on previous research by those of local historical societies and sketches written by locals of areas within the pages, sometimes those suggestions help knock down brick walls for researchers, just like me.

In my spare time, I research each memorial I come across and try to find obituaries and the like, so I try and fill in birth and death dates and locations, and connect parents and spouses, plus any other info that will help connect each other.

So if you receive any suggestions from me, I mean no harm or anything upsetting. I just love to help! Also, if I've made a memorial for your loved one and you'd like to manage it, just shoot me a message and I'll be happy to pass it along.

NOTE: Also, I tend to take a lot of my photos at an angle to avoid lighting glare and reflections of myself, as many stones are shiny. If I upload one of my photos to a memorial that already has a photo, it's usually because of the previous reasons, or because some others photos have chalk on them (I don't do that) or because they're decorated, making things hard to read, or because maybe lighting was different, stone was cleaner, or broken between previous photos and mine, so to update stone wear and damage, or because some photos don't show the entire headstone from top to bottom and I know some people like photos like that for genealogical reasons. When I upload my photos to memorials with previous photos, it's with the best intentions and not to step on anyone's toes, so to speak.

About My Memorials: when I research a memorial that I'm working on, I use Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, GenealogyBank.com, MyHeritage.com, WikiTree.com and Newspapers.com, with the occasional Google search as well as a collection of books I've bought covering local areas within Central Illinois and locations of interest. If I add information to a memorial, I will add which book I found the information in. If I'm able to find an obituary, I include it in the biography with the date and location that the obituary was published. I also will include sources that I've found from the above websites that help me fill in any information that is missing, along with linking family (father, mother, spouse). I hope this helps others in their research, as everyone has a different research approach and two pairs of eyes are better than one. When I also find articles in regards to the deceased's life like major events (births, engagements, marriages, divorces, deaths, etc.) that have information on family members, dates, locations, addresses, cause of death, or things like careers, achievements, anniversaries, etc., I include those too to help with other's research. I will never post negative articles or anything that I feel will be offensive. I will use photographs from obituaries as long as the quality is decent or better. Sometimes, that's the only photo other relatives of the deceased will ever get to see. I only share to help.

I'm located in Central Illinois and try my best to help work on and research memorials and cemeteries within my area. I will happily transfer a memorial to those who ask, so long as it isn't of a close relative of mine, as I request memorials from others from time to time. I will attempt to research any information suggested to me before accepting it, as I try to be as accurate as possible and I try to include sources.

My Paternal family surnames are: Rhodes, Gore, Hinkle, Sexton, Mitchell, Hartline, Dennis, Johnson, Spoonamore, and others. My maternal family surnames are Hobbs, Quick, Pickens, Bowling, Montgomery, Keys, Corder, Harber, and others. I am a descendant of the Gores that founded Goreville, Illinois.

I have family that reside throughout Illinois and Oklahoma, focusing on Central Illinois, Southern Illinois, and very southern Oklahoma, among other sporadic locations like any family tree has.

Genealogy is not just a hobby for me, but a passion. I strive to research and document my ancestors and am currently working on physically documenting my progress to share with generations to come. I also love photography, so I love to go out and photograph headstones individually, so as to help get those memorial pages with no photos taken care of.

Not only do I love researching my family tree, but I also love visiting and photographing cemeteries in a very respectful, calm and peaceful way. Call me crazy, but when I photograph headstones, I read out loud the names of those who rest there, and talk to them as if they were there. I never want anyone to be forgotten, no matter what they did in life. They were once humans, just like you and I.

Also, I love to purchase old books. Currently, my oldest is the Early Settlers of Sangamon County, written by John Carroll Power, published in 1876. I've lived in Sangamon county majority of my life, so I'm familiar with many of the areas mentioned in the book. I love when I read about a person who's grave I'd visited previous to reading about them. It almost feels like you're reading about someone you know!

With my old books, I love to go through them thoroughly and find the deceased within those pages on here, as well as other favorite research sites, and offer any potentially missing information.

While I do know that what I'm offering is suggestion, based on previous research by those of local historical societies and sketches written by locals of areas within the pages, sometimes those suggestions help knock down brick walls for researchers, just like me.

In my spare time, I research each memorial I come across and try to find obituaries and the like, so I try and fill in birth and death dates and locations, and connect parents and spouses, plus any other info that will help connect each other.

So if you receive any suggestions from me, I mean no harm or anything upsetting. I just love to help! Also, if I've made a memorial for your loved one and you'd like to manage it, just shoot me a message and I'll be happy to pass it along.

NOTE: Also, I tend to take a lot of my photos at an angle to avoid lighting glare and reflections of myself, as many stones are shiny. If I upload one of my photos to a memorial that already has a photo, it's usually because of the previous reasons, or because some others photos have chalk on them (I don't do that) or because they're decorated, making things hard to read, or because maybe lighting was different, stone was cleaner, or broken between previous photos and mine, so to update stone wear and damage, or because some photos don't show the entire headstone from top to bottom and I know some people like photos like that for genealogical reasons. When I upload my photos to memorials with previous photos, it's with the best intentions and not to step on anyone's toes, so to speak.

About My Memorials: when I research a memorial that I'm working on, I use Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, GenealogyBank.com, MyHeritage.com, WikiTree.com and Newspapers.com, with the occasional Google search as well as a collection of books I've bought covering local areas within Central Illinois and locations of interest. If I add information to a memorial, I will add which book I found the information in. If I'm able to find an obituary, I include it in the biography with the date and location that the obituary was published. I also will include sources that I've found from the above websites that help me fill in any information that is missing, along with linking family (father, mother, spouse). I hope this helps others in their research, as everyone has a different research approach and two pairs of eyes are better than one. When I also find articles in regards to the deceased's life like major events (births, engagements, marriages, divorces, deaths, etc.) that have information on family members, dates, locations, addresses, cause of death, or things like careers, achievements, anniversaries, etc., I include those too to help with other's research. I will never post negative articles or anything that I feel will be offensive. I will use photographs from obituaries as long as the quality is decent or better. Sometimes, that's the only photo other relatives of the deceased will ever get to see. I only share to help.