This is the Internet Web edition of the Cemetery Survey of Surry County, North
Carolina. It is brought to you by the Surry County Genealogical Association. We hope you will find it
user-friendly and useful. We will be adding "newly discovered" cemeteries and updating cemetery location and other information from time
to time.
If you note any problems with using this data please advise the Surry County Genealogical Association. If in your use of the data you note any errors, missing entries for any
cemetery, changes needed to any data entry, or older cemeteries, family burial
grounds or individual gravesites not included in this survey that you have
information or personal knowledge about, please write to the Society at this
address:
Surry County Genealogical Association
PO Box 997
Dobson, NC 27017-0997
Or contact the Association by Email at: SCGA
Back to Cemetery Index
This web site Copyright (c) 1996-2008, Cemetery Census. All Rights Reserved
Reproduction, adaptation or alteration without prior written permission of
Cemetery Census is prohibited, except as allowed under the copyright laws.
Cemetery Census shall not be liable for errors
contained in this material, or for incidential or consequential damage in
connection with the data herein.
--- ATTENTION ---
You are invited and encouraged to read the following summary of the origin of
this data and how it came to be here today.
We suggest that you read this summary at least once, probably before
starting to use the data, as it contains important information that may bear on
your research.
WHERE AND HOW THE CEMETERY DATA WAS ACQUIRED
Background of the Cemetery Survey
Purpose
The purpose of the cemetery survey was to document the locations of cemeteries in Surry County as well as the directions on how to find them. The project specifically “did not” create an inventory or develop a listing of the occupants (burials) for any cemetery surveyed, with the exception that we provided some burial information in the notes about a cemetery.
For the cemetery data we have published, some may also show surveys of burials. Where that occurs, such data has been provided or donated by other parties and is should not be considered as part of the Surry County cemetery survey project. As it pertains to this project, the Surry County Genealogical Association has not compiled or published any data concerning the burials of individuals in any cemetery surveyed, other than those provided in our summary notes describing the cemetery.
Collecting Information
In 2005 Andy Hennis and Bob Carter had a casual conversation at the Surry County Register of Deeds Office and the discussion centered on new ideas for projects for the Surry County Genealogical Association. One in particular was the documentation of cemeteries that existed in Surry County. Both Andy and Bob knew that urbanization was encroaching on lands where cemeteries were located, and they felt the time was right for the Association to undertake this project. Since Andy was serving as President of the Association at that time, he volunteered to bring up the idea to the members for discussion at an upcoming meeting.
Once the proposal was submitted to the Board of Directors, they voted unanimously to pursue the project. They published their efforts in the Association’s quarterly journal and also contacted the Mt. Airy News newspaper which agreed to write a feature article, with photos, in hopes of encouraging participation by citizens of the county. The Association also purchased mobile GPS devices and decided to publish all data on the web as a public service. Data was collected by volunteers who visited the cemeteries. They used portable computers, pen and paper, and mobile GPS recording devices to chart the location of the cemetery. Data was then typed into a Word document, then converted to an Excel spreadsheet, then submitted to the web site for publication.
Once the initial poll of volunteers was completed, the project began in early 2006 with a small number of volunteers. As a starting point, they used earlier surveys of cemeteries conducted by SCGA in the 1970s and received numerous phone calls and Emails from individuals with information. SCGA also contacted the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and their Geographic Naming Information System (GNIS) since they already had published several church and family cemeteries. As a result of that contact, the GNIS has requested a copy of the final GPS data to update their mapping coordinates since SCGA’s GPS readings were taken from the approximate centers of the grave sites.
SCGA also contacted the Surry County Tax Mapping office to verify field readings against official records on property locations, owners, addresses, and parcel numbers. One benefit of the information is that Surry County Tax Mapping offered to accept the data collected, convert it to their database for permanent recording, and produce a map for the SCGA of all cemeteries surveyed.
NOTE: For those cemeteries that have Parcel ID numbers assigned, a word of caution. These numbers are subject to change anytime a piece of land is surveyed and split into other parcels, or combined into a single parcel. When that occurs, the old Parcel ID number will no longer apply and the parcel number shown with the cemetery will not be valid. As a result, it is always best to get specific information from the Surry County Tax Mapping office.
Recording Information
Comments on Editorial Decisions
Our volunteers uncovered many cemeteries in remote areas. In many cases, graves were little more than fieldstones or river slate markers without names or dates. There were also many examples where inscriptions and/or dates could be seen, but the deterioration was so significant they were not legible.
Our hope is genealogy researchers, either living in Surry County or elsewhere, will appreciate the effort we’ve put into this database, but more importantly will tell us of other grave sites to uncover before they are lost to urbanization. We’ve included a few cemeteries in adjacent counties since many of the burials were previous residents of Surry County or were related to people who settled there.
Corrections and Additions
Through our initial effort of publicizing grave sites, SCGA hopes this project continues into the future with additional volunteers to locate and document the existence of other grave sites. Anyone can volunteer and anyone can submit new grave locations, verify reports, document and proof revisions, and/or keep a record of correspondence. Whenever possible, once we know the location of a cemetery, we will make every effort to locate it and provide the data back to this web site for publication.
Reporting Corrections and Additions
The Surry County cemetery data is not guaranteed to be mistake free. With the number of cemeteries surveyed, the frequent exchange of data, as well as corrections and updates, the viewer should use it as one source but should also verify the data with an independent source. Common errors may include spelling of names, misreading dates, incorrect GPS reading, misstatement of a driving direction, relationships or the listed burials, etc.
To submit corrections or report new sites to survey, send your notes to the following address and be sure to include your name, address, telephone number, current date, and source of information.
Surry County Genealogical Association
PO Box 997
Dobson, NC 27017
judyscard@alltel.net (SCGA web master)
Acknowledgments
We wish to thank the following people who provided valuable information and/or volunteered to inventory the cemeteries for this survey:
Inventory Takers
| Andy Hennis, Mt. Airy, NC |
Joe Hicks, Elkin, NC |
Wilma Hiatt, Tobaccoville, NC |
| Diane Niston, Mt. Airy, NC |
Bob Carter, Greensboro, NC |
|
Other Sources of Information
Surry County Register of Deeds – official birth, death and marriage records
---------------- HAPPY SEARCHING! ----------------
--- UPDATES ---
- January 27, 2007 - Initial release of the cemetery data
- March 1, 2007 – Initial publication of cemetery photos
Last revised 24 February 2007
