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Though amateur genealogist Edie Walker spends much of her spare time in cemeteries, she’s not immune to the heebie-jeebies.
“I don’t like the new graves — those ones actually do creep me out,” she said. “The older, the better for me.”
Walker, 48, is a volunteer photographer for the website Find A Grave, where users can search through a database of more than 170 million memorials to find graves from around the world.
Over the past few years, Walker has gone out to cemeteries in Ottawa around 100 times to take more than 5,000 photographs of headstones, uploading them to the website for others to browse through.
She said the photography all started with a trip to Liverpool for a wedding a few years ago. Walker’s mother — who immigrated from the U.K. — died when she was 17, so she decided to use the trip as an opportunity to do a little digging into her family tree, which she had started doing decades prior to explore her ancestry.
“I was going to the cemetery to look for my own relatives and something just occurred to me that, if I’m over there, I should be taking photographs of other people’s headstones just so that other people looking for this information could find it,” said Walker.
Every moment she wasn’t partaking in wedding festivities, she was at the cemetery.
“When I came back from that trip, I started looking through Find A Grave to find all the cemeteries that were in my area and to see if they had any photos up, and I then headed out there,” Walker said.
Edie Walker is an amateur genealogist and photographer who takes pictures of graves for the website Find A Grave. Walker walks amongst headstones at Beechwood Cemetery with her camera and map in hand.
Her favourite cemetery in Ottawa is Beechwood, Canada’s national cemetery.
“I find it actually very peaceful to be there … I don’t mean peaceful in the sense of the dead,” she said with a laugh.
For Walker, the best cemeteries are the ones frequently visited. She said her favourite thing about Beechwood is that it’s “cared for,” and how she can see people walking or jogging through with their families or dogs.
“Sometimes I get a good feeling from a cemetery, and sometimes I get a not-so-good feeling,” Walker said. “And the not-so-good feeling doesn’t mean I think there are ghosts or anything around — it’s more when something is not cared about anymore, and people aren’t using it and it’s just been forgotten. I really hate that.”
Since she started doing genealogy, Walker said the number of people interested in discovering their roots has only grown.
“Twenty years ago when I started doing (my family’s genealogy), it was all pensioners,” she said. “You wouldn’t have found anybody going out to cemeteries and taking pictures of headstones. But now you have this website where it’s completely volunteer, and it’s generated by people like me who want to see people’s lives recorded.”
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“I don’t like the new graves — those ones actually do creep me out,” she said. “The older, the better for me.”
Walker, 48, is a volunteer photographer for the website Find A Grave, where users can search through a database of more than 170 million memorials to find graves from around the world.
Over the past few years, Walker has gone out to cemeteries in Ottawa around 100 times to take more than 5,000 photographs of headstones, uploading them to the website for others to browse through.
She said the photography all started with a trip to Liverpool for a wedding a few years ago. Walker’s mother — who immigrated from the U.K. — died when she was 17, so she decided to use the trip as an opportunity to do a little digging into her family tree, which she had started doing decades prior to explore her ancestry.
“I was going to the cemetery to look for my own relatives and something just occurred to me that, if I’m over there, I should be taking photographs of other people’s headstones just so that other people looking for this information could find it,” said Walker.
Every moment she wasn’t partaking in wedding festivities, she was at the cemetery.
“When I came back from that trip, I started looking through Find A Grave to find all the cemeteries that were in my area and to see if they had any photos up, and I then headed out there,” Walker said.
Edie Walker is an amateur genealogist and photographer who takes pictures of graves for the website Find A Grave. Walker walks amongst headstones at Beechwood Cemetery with her camera and map in hand.
Her favourite cemetery in Ottawa is Beechwood, Canada’s national cemetery.
“I find it actually very peaceful to be there … I don’t mean peaceful in the sense of the dead,” she said with a laugh.
For Walker, the best cemeteries are the ones frequently visited. She said her favourite thing about Beechwood is that it’s “cared for,” and how she can see people walking or jogging through with their families or dogs.
“Sometimes I get a good feeling from a cemetery, and sometimes I get a not-so-good feeling,” Walker said. “And the not-so-good feeling doesn’t mean I think there are ghosts or anything around — it’s more when something is not cared about anymore, and people aren’t using it and it’s just been forgotten. I really hate that.”
Since she started doing genealogy, Walker said the number of people interested in discovering their roots has only grown.
“Twenty years ago when I started doing (my family’s genealogy), it was all pensioners,” she said. “You wouldn’t have found anybody going out to cemeteries and taking pictures of headstones. But now you have this website where it’s completely volunteer, and it’s generated by people like me who want to see people’s lives recorded.”
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