Sideling Hill Christian Cemetery | Spring Equinox Documentation Event

Anticipating spring and the final push to finish my Eagle community service project, I planned a documentation event for Saturday, March 6, 2021, at the Sideling Hill Christian Cemetery in Needmore, Licking Creek Township, Fulton County, Pennsylvania. I emailed this invitation to potential volunteers in mid-February and waited to see if the weather would cooperate. Then an unexpected appointment cropped up for me on March 6, so I gave notice by email that the event would occur on the backup date, Saturday, March 20, the first day of spring.

The morning of the event was cold but clear. Four photographers gathered promptly at 9:00 a.m. in the church parking lot across the road from the cemetery. Everyone there had experience using the BillionGraves app, so we headed into the cemetery gate and walked up the hill to the grave sites furthest from the road. My plan was to work from the back to the front, row by row, so that we ended at the cemetery gate. We had come prepared with tools and supplies to clean headstones as needed, but this cemetery appeared to be very well kept. I was pleased with how much more prepared I felt for this documentation event compared to the first event at the Warfordsburg Presbyterian Church in October 2020. This was an amazing feeling of progress and accomplishment!

Just as I was preparing to assign rows, two more volunteers arrived. They were from my former troop, Needmore Troop 45. It was good to see them, and I am very grateful for the network of friends I have made during my twelve years of scouting.

I reviewed some finer points of cemetery documentation, such as avoiding taking photos clouded with shadows, using the link-picture feature of the BillionGraves app, recognizing and photographing family burial sites with two or more connected stones, and documenting burial sites that contain one large headstone bearing a family name and many footstones that usually document only first and middle names together with dates.

Approximately one-third of the way through the cemetery, another volunteer from Needmore Troop 45 arrived. In just under two hours, seven people, including me, photographed the entire cemetery and uploaded most of the photos onsite while enjoying snacks and bottled water.

Many thanks to this great group of volunteers and to everyone who helped and supported my project! I could not have come this far without you!

Front (L-R): Logan Desaulniers, Chasity Jansen, Scott Jansen, Donna Lynch, Marlin Lynch

Back: Ed Wenschhof

Click here to view the BillionGraves webpage for the cemetery at the Sideling Hill Christian Church.

Documentation Date: March 20, 2021

Images Contributed: 927