My name is Rexanna M. Keats. I am the 34 year-old mother of a nine year-old boy. I am an American who so happens to have been born and brought up in Canada. I am currently living in Saint John, a city that was settled by Loyalists, colonists who fled America at the end of the Revolutionary war, so many graves here may be of interest to you, my extended American family.

I first became interested in old cemeteries around the eighth grade when Mr. William Whittaker, my social studies teacher, assigned us to go to the Loyalist Burial Grounds to read the inscriptions. Unklike modern tombstones, they are hauntingly descriptive of the person that they memorialize, like the first tombstone of a non-family member that I ever photographed, Hannah Ann McMaster. Her tombstone reads as follows: "This stone marks the hallowed spot where the remains of a faithful wife, a most dutiful daughter, and a tender mother, are deposited."

I have always been interested in family history and genealogy but I have always lived far away from my paternal family in Newfoundland and my maternal family in West Virginia. The Internet has make it a lot easier for my son, my mother, and I to find our roots so I hope to pay this blessing that I have been given forward. It is truly amazing to be able to virtually stand at the graveside of a grandparent that you were never able to meet.

Remember one of Benjamin Franklin's maxims, "If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead & rotten, either write
things worth reading, or do things worth the writing."

The photo shown, at left, was taken of my son and I in a Montreal subway photo booth.

My name is Rexanna M. Keats. I am the 34 year-old mother of a nine year-old boy. I am an American who so happens to have been born and brought up in Canada. I am currently living in Saint John, a city that was settled by Loyalists, colonists who fled America at the end of the Revolutionary war, so many graves here may be of interest to you, my extended American family.

I first became interested in old cemeteries around the eighth grade when Mr. William Whittaker, my social studies teacher, assigned us to go to the Loyalist Burial Grounds to read the inscriptions. Unklike modern tombstones, they are hauntingly descriptive of the person that they memorialize, like the first tombstone of a non-family member that I ever photographed, Hannah Ann McMaster. Her tombstone reads as follows: "This stone marks the hallowed spot where the remains of a faithful wife, a most dutiful daughter, and a tender mother, are deposited."

I have always been interested in family history and genealogy but I have always lived far away from my paternal family in Newfoundland and my maternal family in West Virginia. The Internet has make it a lot easier for my son, my mother, and I to find our roots so I hope to pay this blessing that I have been given forward. It is truly amazing to be able to virtually stand at the graveside of a grandparent that you were never able to meet.

Remember one of Benjamin Franklin's maxims, "If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead & rotten, either write
things worth reading, or do things worth the writing."

The photo shown, at left, was taken of my son and I in a Montreal subway photo booth.