Cemetery Caches

[+shtlndpnylver]

I know people have differing opinions on cemetery caches and that's not what this topic is about. I'm wanting to know (specifically in TX) how to go about finding the responsible parties for the cemeteries in my county. There are ZERO caches here and with so many historical cemeteries I thought this would be a nice cache series. Please keep your opinions to yourself, unless you have knowledge of finding land manager information. Many of these cemeteries are not located near a church but literally in the middle of no where.

[+mpilchfamily]

Find and get in touch with your local historical society and they should be able to point you in the right direction.

[+Semper Questio]

There are a great many small cemeteries throughout Texas. Many started as (and some still are) very small family cemeteries that are on private property. There is really no central authority and many cemeteries have no real governing authority other than the local property owners. Others are owned by churches, counties, the state, various cemetery associations, and many more organizations. There are many near my home that are in the middle of active croplands. To make things even more complicated, some cemeteries have signs with their names and who manages them, but there are a great many with little (if anything at all) that identifies it or who (if anyone) is maintaining it.

 

OK, so I went through all that to end up here. There is no single answer for you. In many cases, you'll likely have to do a good bit of detective work. The county offices of the county where the cemetery is located, or a local museum, may be a good place to start but you could well run into a lot of dead ends.

 

Good luck.

[+shtlndpnylver]

Thank you for your replies! So, if I run into a dead end what are the rules for placing caches on the OUTSIDE of property lines on county property (road easements)?

[+Touchstone]

In general, most cemeteries are treated as private property, and in many cases requires explicit permission. You could check with your Local Reviewer, but in CA, that's generally how it's handled.

[+A & J Tooling]

Don't know about Texas but road easements are off limits here in this part of Michigan BUT there are tons of geocaches there anyways. I guess your ethics determine your course of action.

[+BAMBOOZLE]

Cemetery caches are my very favorite.....we drove from Natchitoches, LA west into Texas and found 14 cemetery caches in one day.....some were remote and grown over. We got some on the Texas side....on one you left the highway and followed a dirt road through open pastures and up to the top of a steep hill where the cemetery was....GREAT old Texas site where several residents had been frontier lawmen.

 

I hope you get to place a few.

[+JL_HSTRE]

Contact your local Historical or Geneological society and they can probably direct you. Some cemeteries also have signs noting who manages the cemetery, especially if it is no longer active.

 

IMO a cache near a cemetery is good to bring people there, but keep the physical container outside the cemetery grounds. Offset multicaches are great for this: a virtual Stage 1 (the posted coords) takes you to a particular sign or gravestone in the cemetery, from which information is used to calculate the physical Stage 2 / Final located outside the cemetery.

[+Semper Questio]

Thank you for your replies! So, if I run into a dead end what are the rules for placing caches on the OUTSIDE of property lines on county property (road easements)?

 

I have tried talking to local authorities and TXDOT about that very thing, but I can get no answer. In my experience, there is no particular problem with it by regulation or law, but you need to use a lot of common sense.

 

Out on a lot of backroads there are few places to pull over safely and the spots there are usually lead to gates to private land. I've had more than one landowner ask me to remove caches because it was on a private fence or folks were parking on his land or in his private drive to go after a cache and they didn't like it.

 

Also, there are a lot of "range roads" where a road cuts through ranchland and cattle are allowed to roam freely across or along roads. The ROW on these roads are typically pretty narrow (as are the roads) and the folks that own the cattle get pretty testy with folks stopping near their cattle. Besides, some cattle can get pretty dangerous.

 

This all sounds pretty intimidating, but just as in any other placement, use a lot of common sense and respect others' property rights and have some consideration of safety and how finders may approach the hide site.

[+EdrickV]

This site might be useful in finding out info on Texas cemeteries:

http://www.thc.state.tx.us/cemeteries/cemdefault.shtml

 

And if you do place any caches in cemeteries, you might want to consider placing SQ or Spirit Quest in the name. I know a lot of cemetery caches around my area do that, not sure if anyone in Texas does it yet. It tells people (those who know what it means) at a glance that the local laws about visiting cemeteries apply. (Here we've got a dawn to dusk only rule on visiting cemeteries.)

[+annejilli]

I don't know, but this is just a thought. There is a little unknown Hutterite graveyard near where I live. Some farmer bought some land and had no idea that it was even there. Then he discovers it. He puts this little fence around it and a plaque to explain what it is and give some respect to those that are buried there. Maybe you could take a GPS reading, mark all the cemeteries on a map. Then go to the local village office and get a land map of all the farmer/ranchers land and find out who owns that property. You could even ask around locally and find out. Then you can ask the land owner permission to plant your cache. Just my thought from living in the country.

[+DonB]

This site might be useful in finding out info on Texas cemeteries:

http://www.thc.state.tx.us/cemeteries/cemdefault.shtml

 

And if you do place any caches in cemeteries, you might want to consider placing SQ or Spirit Quest in the name. I know a lot of cemetery caches around my area do that, not sure if anyone in Texas does it yet. It tells people (those who know what it means) at a glance that the local laws about visiting cemeteries apply. (Here we've got a dawn to dusk only rule on visiting cemeteries.)

In Wisconsin we use WSQ in the name. I think Indiana uses ISQ.

[+kwcahart]

First you will have to know which County the cemetery is in. Then go to your County Appraisal District office, which is usually located in the same city as the County Courthouse, but not always. Go to the CAD and tell them that you would like to see the map of the area the cemetery is in, and that you are trying to locate the property owner of the land the cemetery is on. In most counties in TX each tract of property will have a PID (property ID #) plus an account number. The maps will have that number on them and then you can pull up the property owner from that number. The clerks at most CAD offices will help you. Some counties have aerial maps, some have CIS/GIS/etc. (computer) maps and some have none of the above, so you will just have to ask the clerks at the CAD for help until you get the hang of it. I do this for a living in TX and sometimes it gets very complicated. In my humble opinion in most cases the caches are just placed, no permission asked for. I'm not saying this is right, that's just the way it is.

[+dspeer]

Not sure in what county you are interested, but you might consider contacting the cache owner for GCA08D to see what was done for their "Gone But Not Forgotten" cache.

 

lynn

[+shtlndpnylver]

Thanks for the advice!

[+Otis.Gore]

Thank you for your replies! So, if I run into a dead end what are the rules for placing caches on the OUTSIDE of property lines on county property (road easements)?

 

Hahaha! Genius!

[+BMndFul]

Cemeteries can be a with public or private. If they are public, such as for a small or former town, it appears that people treat them like a public park, and don't obtain permission. Either way always be respectful of the placement. I have seen some outstanding hides that highlight interesting information. One cache in my area had it next to a large family grave marker where a family lost 5 kids before their first birthdays around 1860.

[Cladinator]

There is an old cemetery just a little bit down the road from me. It has very old gravestones, some as early as the 1820's and possibly earlier.

I've looked for information about a grounds manager but haven't managed to uncover any.

 

I'm going to go ahead and place a cache there. I don't think there is anyone that would mind.

I'm going to make sure that the cache won't be infringing on any of the gravestones by keeping it on the outskirts.

[+Gitchee-Gummee]

There is an old cemetery just a little bit down the road from me. It has very old gravestones, some as early as the 1820's and possibly earlier.

I've looked for information about a grounds manager but haven't managed to uncover any.

I'm going to go ahead and place a cache there. I don't think there is anyone that would mind.

I'm going to make sure that the cache won't be infringing on any of the gravestones by keeping it on the outskirts.

This is not a good idea. Somebody is caretaker of that cemetery. Somebody has control/administration over it.

If you place it without adequate permission, it will do little more than to give geocaching another black eye.

 

Item #2 of the Fundamental Placement Guidelines:

Obtain the landowner's and/or land manager's permission before you hide any geocache, whether placed on private or public property.

 

Perhaps reading all of the those guidelines would be of benefit Fundamental Placement Guidelines

Edited November 22, 2011 by Gitchee-Gummee

[+jmobr]

Is it just me or did anyone noticed funny statements in this string of posts?

"run into a dead end", (I would think so!)

"...haven't manage to uncover any." (Hmmm, don't they frown in that?) ;-)

[+2beabout]

I did not see anyone else mention this, but the local funeral homes should have contacts for most of the cemeteries in their area. Get in touch with them and they should be able to get you to the right people.

[+theosus]

There used to be a LOT of cemeteries in South Carolina, indeed some in historic cemeteries (Quaker in Camden SC comes to mind). The popularity of them, plus the fact that some cachers were taking photos of things like travel bugs on gravestones almost caused our general assembly to make cemetery caches illegal entirely.

 

Not getting into the wrong or right discussion - but an alternative is a multi. Hide the actual cache off-property, but make a fact-finding mission into the cemetery part of the hunt. Some historic places might even have maps of popular sites.

 

No one's going to bother you for walking around (unless you are part of the westboro church and are picketing a funeral - but that's illegal in our state anyway) looking at dates on tombstones.

[+popokiiti]

Although I can't help as I don't live in your state, we have found caches placed outside cemeteries. The historical nature always draws us in. As always, we show respect and if there were a funeral in progress we would not seek the cache. I have never found a cache in a cemetery.

[+angevine]

Cemeteries are wonderful places. As others have said, the local historical society should be able to help you. Also check with town hall: sometimes the town clerk knows everyone and everything in a given place.

 

Even if they're not *adjacent* to the church, some cemeteries are connected to a local church, so it's worth checking in there.

 

Enjoy!

 

Jeannette

(I wrote the book! "Open Your Heart with Geocaching" at http://tinyurl.com/3ffzsuc )

[+W4G_SOTAGoat]

I have never found a cache in a cemetery.

 

One of the Georgia State Parks Challenge caches is actually IN an old family cemetery that lies within Fort Yargo State Park. I've also found two others around Atlanta that are within the gates of what appear to be old, possibly family or special use, cemeteries.