 Great. I think we'll go ahead and get started. Hello and welcome everybody to the third and final installment of the discovering our ancestors and preserving historic gravesites webinar series, beginning to care for a grave site. My name is Mary Fernandez and I am a program coordinator for the preservation services and outreach department of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Nursing funding and building public investment are often critical towards preserving historic cemeteries and this third webinar in the series will review strategies for carrying out basic preservation work and recruiting and working with volunteers, and we'll also explore public interpretation and engagement as fundraising opportunities. The National Trust has prioritized the preservation of historic cemeteries through several initiatives and programs, including through grant making, the Hope Crew, which you'll hear more about today, and other forms of advocacy like our work at the Shacko bottom, and through including the indigenous burial site in dangerous historic places, including the ancestral places of Southwest Utah in 2019, the indigenous burial site at Rassauek in Virginia, and the West Berkeley shell mound and village site in California in 2020, the Morningstar Tabernacle number 88 order of Moses cemetery in Hall and Maryland in 2021, and all of what cemetery in 2022. As many of you know the needs related to historic preserving historic cemeteries is just absolutely enormous. And the National Trust is committed to continuing to provide resources and tools to address that need, such as this webinar series, as well as an in person event this fall, coordinating with our annual past forward conference in Washington DC, and you'll hear a little bit more about that at the end of this webinar. I'd like to say personally that everyone has a cemetery. I myself came to be passionate about cemeteries due to my professional background in museums and historic sites. Most recently before joining the National Trust I served as the director of special events special projects and volunteers at historic Oakland cemetery in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm thrilled to introduce my co host today, Jason church with the National Center for preservation technology and training. Jason, if you'd like to hop on and say a few words. Hello everybody thank you Mary. So looking forward to chatting with you more today. This is the third of our series so hopefully we can add more to the information so I'm here with the National Center for preservation technology and training where a National Park Service Research Office, located in that kind of Louisiana. And one of our initiatives is historic cemetery work so we do research on cemeteries we do training on cemeteries. We do scientific investigations, cleaners and coatings and things like that so just really excited to talk more about cemeteries with people. We're excited to have you here Jason. In case you don't know the preservation leadership forum is the professional membership program of the National Trust for historic preservation. And this webinar series is made possible by members of preservation leadership forum, and we sincerely thank those of you who are here with us today. Before we begin here a few technical logistics. We will take questions from the audience during the end of the webinar. So please send questions via the Q&A function directly to panelists. You're welcome to submit at any point during the webinar but we will be waiting until the Q&A section to answer questions. You're also encouraged to communicate to all participants through the chat function. So the closed captioning function is enabled for this webinar. And following the program we will send out a recording of today's webinar directly to the email you use to register. Finally, all form webinars are available on our National Trust YouTube channel. I encourage you to please share the recording with your colleagues working to preserve historic cemeteries and as many of you have already done. So if you would like to introduce yourself and your cemetery in the chat and let us know what future topics or tools you'd like to see. All right, next slide. I'm happy to introduce first up Molly Baker as one of our panelists. Molly Baker serves as hope crew manager in the preservation services and outreach department at the National Trust for historic preservation. The focus is growing interest in the building preservation and building pardon me, in the building preservation trades by engaging a younger more diverse audience and hands on preservation opportunities, including cemetery preservation. Additionally, she has partnered with Milan Jordan hope crew director to expand the program finding the place where architecture fields and preservation trades intersect, working with architecture students on campus stewardship community engagement and documentation taking away Molly. Thanks Mary. Thank you so much for having me here today. I'm really happy to tell you a little bit about our work with the hope crew program, and specifically talk about the projects that we've engaged in as a means to talk about interventions that you can use at cemeteries you love. The, if you can go ahead and advance the slide. And one more. I'll begin with just talking about who crew in general it's an acronym for hands on preservation experience, and it was founded in 2014 with the end with the goal of engaging a broader audience and building preservation trades, and specifically a younger and more diverse audience. Next slide. Since our founding we've assisted in over $19 million worth of preservation work, engaged with 3700 volunteers, worked with 800 paid participants or trainees, and worked at 190 historic sites, and of those 190 historic sites we've worked at quite a few cemeteries. And as I mentioned, I'm going to highlight some of those projects and talk about those interventions and detail the work that we did there as a model that you possibly could use at the cemeteries that you're working into preserve. Next slide. The next project I'd love to highlight is our project at Colapapa National Park. It is located on the island of Molokai. It was a haven for people with leprosy or Hansen's disease from 1866 to 1969. In that time over 8000 people were sent there to live. In the last stages of the residency there was a really rough place to live, but the people pulled together and created a community and made a safe place for people to go and live their lives with Hansen's disease. And with the local college at the University of Hilo, of Hawaii at Hilo, their Hawaiian studies program was very interested in a cultural immersion experience and preservation trades training opportunity. So this was a perfect location. We worked with Jason at the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, and also Rusty Brenner of Texas preservation cemetery preservation restoration. We trained these students on how to clean the headstones. In the time we were there we were able to clean all 1200 graves and even locate some missing headstones. The project in addition to preservation work had an emphasis on learning about the ancestors that they were caring for by cleaning these headstones and the cultural significance of that place. And as part of that there were ceremonies that took place daily including asking the ancestors if we could enter the site. This piece of Hawaiian culture is something that we've incorporated into our projects, not necessarily the ceremony, but pausing before we enter a historic cemetery and taking note of the people that are buried there and noting their lives. And that pause gives us space to enter the site in a respectful manner and remind our participants of the reasons why we're there. You don't mind dropping in the chat there's a link to the article and also some information on how to properly clean headstones. We typically work with a product called D2. It removes biological growth. It's really easy to work with it's safe to work with and it makes a big impact on removing those damaging biological growths that are found on headstones. So that's one way in which you can assist your historic cemetery. Next slide. Oh, and this is our crew, a picture of our crew that we worked with there is a really great project we were thrilled to be a part of. Next slide. The next project that I'm going to highlight is the old city cemetery in Tallahassee, Florida. It was a historically segregated cemetery. It was a city burial ground, and by means of our digital documentation fellowship in support of with the action fund. We were able to develop this program to work with our architecture students at HBC use and help them explore the intersection of preservation and architecture studies. And this is through either campus projects or campus community projects and so old city cemetery is adjacent to the Florida and campus, and we were able to work at that site, doing documentation, headstone cleaning and GIS mapping. And by means of the work that our fellow Joshua did, we were able to create a walking tour of the notable figures specifically buried in the African American side of the cemetery. But additionally, we're able to clean the headstones and create a project that engaged his classmates and learning about this burial ground. I'm going to drop a link to the documentary in there for me. That will show you a little bit more about this fellowship and specifically the work that Joshua was able to do here at the old city cemetery, working right alongside the city officials, including Matt Lutz who prioritized writing the wrongs that had been made here at the cemetery and making sure that this that everyone's story was told by means of this project. Next slide. And there's Matt Lutz there demonstrating some of the damage of the headstones. We were able to do some cleaning work and future work will engage local community members in repair methods. Next slide. The project I'd love to highlight was a three year partnership project at the shell met cemetery and battlefield. It's a national park site. Again, we worked alongside the National Center for preservation technology and training and Jason to create volunteer opportunities to go and do resetting efforts here at the shell met cemetery and battlefield. The cemetery site is the final resting place of many that died during the Civil War Union soldiers that died during the Civil War, including the, the, I think there's 14,000 headstones, and there's a number of the color troops buried there as well. It was a really great opportunity for us to teach cleaning documentation but resetting primarily as with many of these burial grounds at battlefield sites. The cemeteries are all laid out in a grid. And when they begin to slide and slip it's very noticeable so that resetting was a really great opportunity to teach that skill. That's one that can be intimidating on the surface. So we're going to drop a link to a tutorial on how to reset, but with the right tools. This project showed that anybody can learn that technique and it can make a big impact. If you'll go to the next slide. The next project I'm going to focus on is a black land loss seminar. It was a partnership in connection with the University of the District of Columbia and the Latin American Youth Center, their conservation course specifically. The project two sites, one the Lafayette Pointer Park, and the other the Mount Zion female Union Bands Cemetery. The park had been put over top of a burial ground, and none of the headstones remained. So we partnered with the black land loss seminar course to explore how to identify those graves. If you advance to the next slide, we used a technology of GPR site scanning, working with Ohio Valley archeology to do a scan to make sure that those places of water were noted and presented so that there could be future signage to show that this was once a burial ground. Additionally, if you go to the next slide, we're able to work at Mount Zion female band cemetery. This cemetery had been neglected for many years, there's quite a bit of overgrowth. The current owners have been working tirelessly to clear that land. We're able to work with our conservation, conservation core participants to do additional clearing to identify missing graves. Through that ground penetrating radar, we're able to map out an area in which we found hundreds of missing grave markers and grave sites. If you advance to the next slide, we also incorporated a photogrammetry technique so that the headstones that were eligible could be read, and that was a really cool technique that we used for that. And if you drop the article in the chat it talks more about how you can utilize these technologies at your own cemetery. Next slide. What I'd love to highlight is one that was mentioned the Olivewood Cemetery. Olivewood is a great example of the ways in which the programs that the trust come together to support a historic site. Olivewood was placed on the 11 most listed also has been a recipient of the African American cultural heritage action fund grant. It is the first African American cemetery incorporated in the city of Houston. It has many issues, one of which is the results of climate change, but also some have to do with development all around the site, including highways that made for some slippage of cemetery headstones and the loss of some grave sites. For a particular project though, we partnered with a program that was exploring digital media. So our participant Gabby was also a part of our digital documentation fellowship but she came to us as a design media student, and wanted to assist the site in some way. So we worked with Gabby and her fellow students to create a brand book to highlight the site. So this is something important that could create branding so that the site can use that to grow their social media following to use on their website. These are great tools to spread the word about your historic sites. I'm using these modern means to tell the story of your cemetery is a way to engage volunteers for fundraising efforts. So this was a great tool that Gabby was able to present to all of Olivewood cemetery. So let's go to the next slide on that's going to conclude on my portion of the presentation, but there are some additional resources that we're going to pop into the chat. And if you'd like to reach out to talk a little bit more about any of these different interventions I'd love to share more about it. Thank you. Thanks Molly. I feel go to the next side, please. Great. So introducing Jason church, who you just heard from shortly before Molly's presentation. Jason church is the chief of technical services at the National Center for preservation technology and training with the National Park Service. Jason Jason divides his time between conducting in house research, organizing various training events and teaching hands on conservation workshops. Currently the conservation chair of the Association for gravestone studies. Thanks Jason. Thank you Mary. Yes, I'm actually joining you today from my hotel in Denver. I'm here with the association gravestones, com studies annual conference is this week. I'm here in Denver, visiting cemeteries and getting ready to do some hands on cemetery workshop at evergreen cemetery in Colorado spring so very cemetery filled day. So next slide. So I kind of want to talk about sort of an intro to cemetery care and I know in the prior workshop prior webinars we've talked about documentation. That's a great thing you can do with volunteers. I want to move it a little bit more toward sort of caring physically for the cemetery and what we can do with volunteers and then Mary's going to talk more about, you know, getting interest and getting volunteers and you know Molly just gave great examples of some just amazing projects that they've done with, you know, huge groups of volunteers. I know the hope crews had. We ran 700 people through shall met one year so for in one month so you know it's it's a lot easier than you think to get volunteers. Next slide. So the first thing you've got to decide before you start bringing volunteers in before you start caring for the cemetery is. So what do you want what's your end goal for your cemetery. And I don't think we think about this a lot of times everyone just, you know, says oh we want to clean it we wanted to we need to decide as a cemetery. What's sustainable for you, what's your budget like what's your workforce like you in an area where we can get a lot of volunteers are you in the area. That's maybe an aging community that you cannot, you know, you get a few volunteers. So what's really comfortable with what's the look, the overall appearance and sort of the sustainability of your site. And there's lots of things to think about with that. So for example, this is Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. And I know a lot of the cemetery is I work with this is what they want. But we have to be realistic that the look of a cemetery like this probably isn't achievable for your 90% of the cemetery is out there. But you know what, what do you want out of your cemetery. Next slide. And what's right for you so for example we're just working in Rockport, Texas, an absolute amazing cemetery that has decided that, you know, they were spending all of their budget a year mowing and trying to maintain the grass. And that's not really what they wanted so they decided to sort of shift gears. And now they have seeded the entire cemetery with native wildflowers. And it's a really, really amazing site. When I was there we were there doing some hurricane recovery work with Texas Historic Commission resetting grays but I was amazed at the amount of birders that were there. Literally people drive in all day long. This has become quite the bird watching area their birds everywhere. I've never seen so many butterflies and all my life. So that's what they decided was right for them that trying the sustainability of keeping that mode like the golf course just was not realistic. So in the other photograph we see this is Reddy's River Church in Willbar in North Carolina. This is by family seven Harry was just there last week and they do a beautiful job of mowing it but they've decided, you know, the head cleaning the headstones just isn't what our priority is. We don't have the budget for it we're going to keep the they have a very nice selection of local grasses native grasses that doesn't need a lot of maintenance. So they decided the look of the cemetery. They were just going to keep with a weathered look they they welcome family members to clean their own, but as a whole, they've decided to leave the cemetery as it is, and it's a beautiful cemetery. There's definitely nothing wrong with it I think they're doing a great job maintaining it. Next slide please. One of the things I want to talk about was really sort of what we call you know getting into the weeds. I talked to a lot of cemeteries that are starting with a cemetery that looks like this this is one that my Girl Scout troop and I have taken over. The African American Cemetery in Reedheimer Louisiana was considered abandoned and lost. And then the local nature reserve has just gained regained access to it. And so we have started basically from scratch no one's really been in there probably since the 1970s. And, you know, how do you start with that I know it's a really daunting task but I think it's a lot more achievable than people think. Next slide please. So if you think back to what you just saw the how overgrown it was you can see a few headstones then the actually previous slide please. So, this is what we're starting with the smaller photograph. This is completely ever grown we were told there were only four or five grave markers in the site, and then on the larger photograph this is this isn't the end of the day this isn't about lunchtime on the first day of work. So you could see how much we were able to clear. And next slide, you will see my work crew. This is my entire work crew, plus myself, and Rick who runs the wildlife reserve. And all we had Rick had a small mower little actually it's a little walk behind Bush hog, and we had a small, you know, 18 inch chainsaw. And then the rest is all been done by hand by these five young ladies that are Girl Scouts. So this, this site took us about six hours to clear. So I talked to people who, who really see their project is something that's too daunting to even accomplish. They say well there's two of us we can't get volunteers but, you know, this is a whole site this is about a half acre that we cleared in six hours with six people, you know, five, five young ladies, and, and myself and Rick. So it's totally achievable we actually found about 27 headstones. That's, you know, about 20 more than than they thought were in there. We had a large selection of funeral markers from the 40s that are still intact. So now the, the task is to clean and identify some of the art of Mark graves that are in there and, you know, be able to research the people who are buried there and be able to honor them. Next slide. So, I mean, you know, maintaining the landscape is one of the first things that you can definitely do you're going in cleaning. We do a lot of cleanup days where we just bring in people. To pick up trash or to pick up trash that sort of thing. But the other big thing is of course everybody wants to clean. And it's easy to get, you know, large groups of volunteers this is another hope project like Molly talked about. I think we had 300 people show up in Stones River Tennessee for one day cleaning. We were able to clean almost the entire cemetery. We had 5000 graves and three hours we were supposed to go four hours we would have gotten it all done but lunch came early and when when as lunch drove in everyone sort of followed the lunch truck, but it's amazing how many volunteers are coming out just to do this. Next slide please. And the reason everyone wants to clean is because it's fun it's instant gratification I mean, we see all these photographs online everyone looks so happy. The reason is because they are. This is a really fun thing to do it's very enjoyable it's definitely something people can walk away with and feel satisfied they really did something and to me. Cemetery cleaning is not as much to for me about trying to maintain this clean look of a cemetery. To me it's a really a way to get community members involved and interested in your cemetery. So, for example, the two young ladies with gambling shirts on. I had working with gambling University quite often, they have a great sociology program that does a lot of cemeteries, a lot of research in them. And, you know, these two ladies, they got in there started cleaning. And when can we do this again. I'm going home to buy myself a set of brushes I'm going to start doing this all the time. It's really a way to get people interested, you get those people coming back to your cemetery volunteering for more things more meaningful things. Those are the people that Mary's going to talk about later that you can really get into getting them on your boards getting them interested in planting trees and doing bigger more meaningful projects. And to me, I'm not a fan of always trying to clean cemeteries. Like I said earlier, you really have to pick a site and decide how clean do you want to keep this overcleaning is definitely a big thing and people I think lean too much a lot of times. But the reality is it is a good way to get people into the cemetery and get them interested and get them active. And make them have a connection to the site. Next slide please. So the biggest reason that we're doing it readability, you know people, genealogist researchers they want to clean they want to be able to read this is the same headstone. It's really secure by the like and so after before clean after clean this is an hour next time. Next slide please. Jason I'm sorry you're breaking up a little bit you might want to turn off your camera and see if that helps with the voice. Sure thing. So one of the things that most of the time we're cleaning it's biological. I don't care where in the country live you probably have this. I live in the deep south. This is prevalent everywhere. And for that. Next slide. The, what we're using is D2 and Molly mentioned that earlier. It's a bio side it's made to kill biological growth so it's a detergent. It cleans the headstone. It'll get soiling and things like that off, but it also has a biocidal agent that will kill that biological group and keep it from coming back for a while. Now this doesn't last forever. I saw a question earlier about that. It will come back biological growth will continue to come back you can't stop it. There's nothing you can put on that headstone that will keep it from coming back forever. Anyone who tells you that we can't code it with anything that's going to keep it from coming back it will come back. How fast it comes back really depends on the weather and the shade and humidity and things like that but realistically anywhere from six months to five years before we would have to consider coming back and reclaiming this grave. Next slide. Now, biological cleaning is something that we can do with volunteers I've done it with thousands of volunteers thousands of youth groups boy scout groups girl scout groups. All kinds of stuff. But one of the things that you can't do and you should call the professional is if your cemetery has staining. This could be a hard water staining the metallic staining. It could be vandalism like the one for Massachusetts there that was covered in fry oil someone unwanted these graves. When you have that. This isn't something volunteers this is something to call a professional conservator it. Next slide please. The other thing is vandalism and graffiti again. It's not something you want to try to tackle yourself this isn't something that you want to call a volunteers for that happens a lot. I work with a lot of sites and said well we just figured somebody can get it off. This is really where you want to take good photographs and call professional it. Next slide please. So we're going to talk a little bit about what not to do and then we'll talk a little bit about what to do. I see this a lot a lot of articles on the internet and genealogy forums recommend you know using wire brushes or nylox brushes or power equipment to clean. We don't recommend that ever wire brushes going to leave metal behind they're going to really run the stone nylox brushes are nylon brushes that are impregnated with diamond this is made to strip paint for metal. Next slide please. And what you really have here is, you can see hopefully you can see the detail of that this is where someone is clean the top of this obelisk. And it does it looks clean it looks white within minutes actually clean the one in the background as well. On inspection which you've really done is just you roaded the top surface of the stone away. This sets up for more biological growth later because you've now greatly increased the surface area of your stone. And so now you're going to be combat that for life you've now got a much larger surface area that's going to catch more biological growth that's going to cause staying faster get dirty quicker. That'll cause more cleaning. And besides that you've done probably 100 years worth of natural erosion in a few minutes. Next slide please. Don't recommend pressure power washers anything over about 500 psi is too strong. Most commercial power washers that you buy at the box stores are 2800 3500 psi. And that's really just going to cut away at the stone and here's a couple good examples where you know good Samaritan tried to clean these for someone. They volunteered to clean and this is this is how it turned out. Next slide please. And acids and bleaches. So this is still used a lot. A lot of people still use bleach. And what it really does is it wrote the stone very quickly so the larger photograph the upright one. That's where bleach has been used really eaten away at the stone taking all the detail out and making a very friable stone and again a lot more surface area. And the sort of core piece on the corner of this monument. That's a good indication where someone's used muriatic acid to clean, and that's you get sort of this tan look to it. That's the metal ions that are in muriatic acid coming out to the surface, but you also have this very sort of translucent melted look like melted ice like an ice sculpture, where you're losing all the detail. So definitely we don't recommend any of these. Next slide please. And sort of the. We don't want to do any harm we want to exercise patients. You remember the stone didn't get dirty and 30 minutes, probably clean and 30 minutes. So that's one of the things that we use a lot. It's a D2 it's a biocide that's going to kill the biological growth. One of the things I always warn when you get done cleaning, it's going to look pretty good. Next slide please. But it's not going to look great. It's going to take a little time for that to lighten up talk about that again in a second. The other thing to look at very important is the equipment that she used. So we're looking at natural bristle brushes. So my friend Rusty Brenner can cemetery conservator I work a lot with. He always says if you're willing to scrub your body with it. That's an okay brush to use the cemetery. I think I'm a little bit more sensitive than that. But what I always say is if you're willing to clean the hood of your car with it, you're okay using it in the cemetery. If you're not scrubbed the hood of your car, I wouldn't put it on a historic headstone. So soft bristle nylon natural bristle brushes. All of these things work really well with water and then you know D2 cleaner out there to clean off that biological or soiling. Next slide please. And like I said, we talked about what not to use and follow the manufacturer's recommendations. Next slide please. So the basic is you know we get the stone wet first we apply our cleaner. We start from the bottom and we work up on small monuments that's not really going to matter on bigger ones you really will see a difference it's going to get clean easier. And lots of water to rinse down a lot of times we don't have water on our sites just means you got to bring it with you so five gallon buckets of water. I carry 30 gallon trash cans full of water, lots of different ways we've got videos and how to use on these that give you suggestions for how to get water to the cemetery and things like that. So definitely something I've done this with thousands and thousands of volunteers. So this is something like I said earlier really gets people interested. Sometimes you're using a biocide like D2 the thing always worn. When you get done. It's going to look good, but you're going to want it to look, I thought it was going to be cleaner than this brighter than this, give it some time it takes a few weeks maybe sometimes a few months for the cleaner to continue to work. So what's happening is, you have scrubbed away the top layer of that biological growth and it's left a root system inside. And as the sun comes out rain comes out that roof systems will slowly work its way out of the pores of the stone to continue to light. I don't watch any of the TikTok videos. They usually have that last shot where it's really clean that was usually taken about a month later, but back into the video so something to keep in mind. Next slide please. So if you want to interested in getting more information easily Google, Google the NPS preservation brief number 48 it's available as a free PDF. On our website we have tons of videos how to videos on cleaning and resetting how to videos on removing landscape caring for landscape. How to trim trees trim, we need all that sort of thing in Historic Cemetery so lots of information. Hopefully you'll find what you need there and if not, drop many email. Next slide. I want to point out, you know, we've sort of quickly glazed over this this is something we usually teach, you know, in a day long class. But we are doing if anybody's interested. I highly recommend attending the past forward conference that's the National Trust is Trusts annual conference. And this year it's going to be in DC and we're actually doing a session on documenting historic gravesites we'll talk about some more of the things like photogrammetry and, and laser planning and gpr at ground penetrating radar and mapping and some of the things that Molly talked about, and we'll also have a hands on cemetery cleaning workshop on the 11th at a cemetery there in DC. So, we'd love to see you please come out. Like I said, and we'll be doing a lot of these things hands on we actually get to get your hands dirty and learn that yourself so hopefully we will see some of you in DC in the fall. And I'm going to turn it back over to Mary. Thanks Jason. There has never been a more true slide than everyone wants to clean. It's true. Everyone wants to clean. It's a lot of fun. So I'm going to be talking today about cemetery interpretation. My background is in historic sites and museums. I've been in public education and public history programming for about 10 years now. And most recently I served as the director of special events special projects and volunteers at the historic Oakland cemetery in Atlanta, Georgia. I feel good to the next slide please. And you know cemetery preservation or pardon me cemetery interpretation provides an incredible opportunity to share the story of your site and also to bring in public investment, which hopefully comes later in the form of literal investment whether that's volunteerism, or whether that's fundraising. This photo that you see on the slide is from the Juneteenth celebration at Oakland cemetery that tour is being led by the incredible Dr. D L Henderson, who's written some amazing books definitely recommend checking out her work. Next slide please. I interpret cemeteries. As I said, by interpreting cemeteries by sharing the story sharing the history, looking at the history and finding ways to package it so that people can hear the story and understand it. I really work to cultivate that public interest in your site, you know, you care very dear very deeply about the cemetery that you're working with but you know, you always have to work on public buy in why should they care about the cemetery. You can use this to help raise awareness of the preservation needs that you have on site, which every cemetery has preservation needs. So, you know, cemeteries really in many ways can be very encyclopedic look at the history of a place. It captures a snapshot of who was living there at the specific place in time. So that's an incredibly important resource that we often see in battlefields we understand this about historic houses but you know despite the ubiquity of cemeteries they're everywhere they often become something that's kind of invisible in the background to the public and they don't realize the rich history that can be found at these sites. You can also use interpretation to encourage site visitation and usage. I'll go into that a little bit further later in my slideshow but you know you don't want your cemetery to become for lack of a better phrase dead space within your community, you want it to be somewhere that's actively visited to help, you know, ensure the future preservation and future concern about its preservation within your community. And then finally, all of these things hopefully lead to fundraising efforts. You can also hold public events and programs that can directly raise funds, or bring in someone new to the site that shows them its value, and perhaps encourages and encourages them to make a direct donation as well. Next slide please. Types of programming that can be held within a cemetery and really this is not an exhaustive list, just something that is frequently done at other sites in the United States. History tours are one of the most accessible means of programming at a historic site usually involves only one person that can lead the tour. It's a really great way to make direct one on one connections and there's really very few barriers to entry besides doing the research and having the stories to share with the public. Naturalism can be a phenomenal tool for bringing people on site and honors this dual usage of the site as urban green spaces, or as green spaces in general. Birdwatchers typically really love cemeteries. Nature walks can be very fruitful there, you know, whether that's the native and non native plants that are planted within cemetery sites, as well as some of the materials of the cemetery itself. What is the history of what stone is being used, what is the history of that stone within your community, or their lichens or other biological growth that is growing on the stone, what's the impact of that. Also citizen science can be utilized on sites to really get build a great deal of engagement on that and like the I naturalist app is a great way to encourage engagement with with people on site. So today's, you know, as Jason said not only not only is that beneficial to the cemetery itself. They're one of volunteers and can be one of the greatest ways of building relationships with your between your site and potential stakeholders, you know, practical performances can be used on site to, you know, highlight certain history or draw connections, holiday celebrations such as Oakland's Juneteenth celebration, as well as pumpkin patches, as someone who has worked in cemeteries, everyone, every member of the public wants to be in the cemetery around October. So it's always great when you can kind of channel that towards something productive. You know, holiday decorations, you know, resales to families so that they can decorate the specific sites. I've even taken part in a tour of eternal homes or mausoleum were decorated for the holidays and that's, you know, a beautiful way of, you know, honoring the deceased and also you're bringing folks on on into your cemetery as well. So, you know, grief support and education are one is one strategy that a lot of people have used it's the perfect location really in many cases to have those kind of our discussions. Looking at, you know, all these different things that can be hosted on site, but also the passive engagement and activities that build familiarity with your cemetery and I'll get into that a little bit further. I've found social media since that's a very accessible way of sharing the story of your cemetery as well. Next slide. I will say if you'll go back a slide actually real quick. What I do discourage as far as programming is anything to do with ghosts or scary stories. We had a phrase at Oakland that our programming was to enlighten not frighten. Part of the rationale behind that is that, you know, you tell a ghost story but that's not a ghost that someone's an Ethel. And so I would discourage from that particular type of programming. But otherwise, I think there's a real enthusiasm among the public to, you know, be involved and be there and present within the cemetery. Next slide please. So looking at tours, you know, many, many cemeteries do historic tours. I really advocate for the cemetery organization itself to hold these tours rather than to outsource to outside tour companies. Typically you earn more income if you hold the tours yourself, and they can often be, you know, really shared duties as far as different stakeholders that are already involved with your cemetery. More involved examples of tours might include capturing the spirit of Oakland at Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta. This particular tour is has become really large. It sells out every year in July, but actors do monologues and portray different residents of the cemetery in October as a way to share the story of the, you know, residents that are buried there. And, you know, while capturing the spirit of Oakland is a very large scale event, it can be scaled down. Living history on site. Living history can be a really impactful tool for reaching out to people, because it comes becomes very personal. Next slide please. So, you know, a lot of the first instinct when it comes to programming at cemeteries is, you know, pretty straightforward telling the story of the individuals buried there. You know, programming also allows us to tell an even larger story when you look at, you know, connecting cultural practices and the universality of death. Oftentimes the demographics of the community have changed from when the original inhabitants who buried their cemetery lived there. And so, you know, the stories of that cemetery don't necessarily always reflect the community that exists there today so how do you draw those connections. Well, we all have a relationship with death in one way or another. And so for instance at Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis, they have the midsummer memory Mandala Mandala's. I won't let you read the description there but it's a great way of looking at themes of, you know, impermanence and, you know, how life and death, you know, kind of is a shared experience across cultures that is able to make connections that, you know, may not be listed when someone just goes into a space where they don't see them themselves reflected in the history. Next slide please. I was, you know, as a first generation American and Latina I really love playing a part in bringing this event to Oakland for the data mortals event that was done in partnership with the Mexican consulate in Atlanta. The ability to, you know, look at these cultural connections and find conjoining links, things that are similar ways that we approach things, even the way that we approach things differently is really meaningful way of bringing your side to life. You know, I'd also note that, you know, art installations can be really impactful on your site as well. One thing that comes to mind. We did a installation with a Chinese American artist who looked at Victorian mausolea and connected these burial practices within the Western world to the Chinese tomb sweeping holiday and the act of coming back to your family's burial ground and cleaning and paying homage to your ancestors. So these artistic installations do the same thing. And not only is it, you know, different individuals being able to use their site in culturally relevant ways. It's also ways to invite other people into the site to learn about these different cultural practices. Next slide please. So passive engagement and familiarity building. So the photos that I shared in this are from around the turn of the century. One is a young woman in New York reading a book and eating apple. I don't recommend doing that while leaning against a headstone. But I wasn't around to tell her not to. And the bottom we have a photo from Dayton, Ohio, Woodland Cemetery, where you have a picnicking day. I included this quote from Emily Dickinson when she visited Mount Auburn Cemetery in Boston in 1846. There is a rich tradition of using cemeteries for recreation before there were city parks there were cemeteries and the Victorians really designed their cemeteries Victorian garden cemeteries for the living they were designed for recreation for strolling for picnicking for music for for people to exist within that space on a day to day basis. You know, this is something that you know the idea that you have to have a very somber and and subdued kind of conduct in a cemetery is is a very recent attitude. It's a very Western attitude as well. There is a very long tradition of celebrations and recreation taking place in cemeteries in Latin America and Africa and Asia. And, you know, the daily use of the cemetery is one of the most critical ways that they can remain remain relevant today. So what does passive engagement, you know, doesn't necessarily require an intermediary for experiencing the cemetery it's just how people use the site. And, you know, encouraging the beat to grow comfortable with being there with being within the cemetery setting and with normalizing the experience of being in a cemetery. Next slide please. So what does passive engagement and familiarity build building look like. It can take a lot of different forms. On the left we have the run like health 5k you know clean cemetery cemetery people we love a good pun. And this was one activity that didn't necessarily at all relate to the history of the site but encourage people to enjoy it to be on site and to, you know, grow to love and care for the site as stakeholders as members of the public. So passive engagement can also look like site signage on the right we have in Cortland Rural Cemetery in Cortland, New York, some self guided tour signage that was put up, and you know tour signage is a great way, you know historical signs in general are great way to, you know, be able to connect that passive use of to usage to the history of the site itself, and gives people a little bit of context I don't know how many of you have been to a cemetery when you are fascinated by the beautiful monuments but you don't necessarily know the stories behind, and that's one way to reach these folks without always necessarily having to have a docent on site and intermediary. Next slide. And then there's like picnicking I noticed in the chat we, there's a very long tradition of picnicking within cemeteries. As did Emily Dickinson when she mentioned all of these different sites that she went to emboss and of course she included Mount Auburn on that list. They also look like weddings, which may be surprising for many people, but you know you have these beautiful mausolea that look like chapels, different monuments that, you know, hold a lot of meaning to people. They have these beautiful locations that bring people on site that wouldn't necessarily have gone to the cemetery on their own. And but once they're there they see the value, and they see how special these places are and what meaning they hold. Next slide. To include, I myself got married within a cemetery during coven my husband and I before we were able to hold our big family wedding. We eloped that is director preservation at Oakland Cemetery Ashley Ashley shares that is the efficient. And, you know, this was really special. This was, you know, something that, you know, although I wasn't able to celebrate, you know, with my family at the time during coven I was still able to have something that was meaningful to me in a place that I loved at, you know, when we could. Next slide please. Now social media, everyone can create a social media account so I absolutely recommend if you don't currently have a social media presence for your cemetery. Absolutely that is step one before you even hold the cemetery tours this is how you get the word out about them. And I really recommend in particular the really visual social media so Facebook is great for, you know, content and information and posting links to blog posts on the history of the site. But what really often draws people in are the visuals of the cemetery. Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia has an incredible tick tock. I definitely recommend it. But you know really all of these major cemeteries that I've jumped, you know, fully into programming within the US. Instagram is a great way to showcase the, you know, beauty that can be found within cemetery sites on the right you have Greenwood Greenwood cemeteries Instagram account. And this is also a way that you can, you know, share a snippet of history share that little spark that hopefully turns into a flame for their passion for the site for the desire to be there to invest in it. Next slide please. Volunteer recruitment. You know, I would say, first and foremost, it's really critical to identify stakeholders. Now descendants are your number one stakeholder. You know I really, you know, when you go into interpretation when you go into hardscape and landscape restoration or work, you know, descendants always need to be contacted first. Something that panels ever fly really talked about well in our first seminar in particular is just that critical role that descendants have to play and and you can continue to, you know, cultivate that relationship and learn the stories that you then want to share with the public but this is also a great group of people when you're first looking to, you know, identify potential volunteers. They have skin in the game, as it were. You know, university students and classes are usually great places to look especially for individuals that are learning to gain, you know, specialized training, you know, going to surrounding neighborhoods. Oftentimes there's kind of a unofficial relationship that neighborhoods have with the cemeteries that are near them. They're already spending time although it's not in a really formal way so take the opportunity to formalize that relationship, build a sense of ownership between, you know, neighborhood residents and cemetery residents. Also, I recommend looking at companies and organizations that might have historic ties to the cemetery. So if the founder of a company is buried in that historic site, you know, go to them and ask them if they want to do a work day. You know, at, you know, hardscape cleaning with with landscape work, you know, always with with prioritizing you know kind of cultural landscapes and what needs to what should or should not be done on your site, but you can work with folks to, you know, get this work done faster with more hands on deck. Now for maintaining engagement. You know, once you have put all of this work into training a volunteer, showing them the proper ways to clean a headstone, you know, looking at the history and training them on tours and and working events or programming at your site. You know, there's really critical to keep up with them. You know, you get people onto the site once and there's a real desire to continue to engage and so staying on top of that and making a concerted effort towards focusing on longevity and the sustainability of your volunteer program is really critical. Next slide. So, thank you so much. We're going to be moving on to the Q&A section of our webinar. You can ask your questions by plugging them into the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen. I know Priya will probably enter in directions for that as well. But I encourage all of our panelists to come back on camera and we'll ask a few questions. All right. So, first up. Let's see. Molly shared a lot of great technological approaches including GPR and photogrammetry. Can you say more about the accessibility practicality and affordability of these tools for amateurs looking to care for cemeteries that are not cared for by a city. I'm happy to address that question. With photogrammetry in particular, there are apps out there that are free and software that augments the data, the photos that you pull from the app and turns that into a 3D model. So, with those tools, you can play around with textures that kind of bring out some of those hidden inscriptions that are eligible at this time by using those, they're called textured meshes. You can be able to bring those to light and see the missing inscriptions. Those are both accessible and free. They're not. It's super easy to use playing around with the 3D modeling is a little more complicated, but there are programs that you can play around with and figure that out so I encourage you to explore that and I listed some of those programs in the chat. For some of the other methods that we were talking about in particular GPR GIS mapping, things like that are pricey they do come with a price tag. We have found a great method for addressing that is grants fundraising, and I'll be happy to plug in some grants that would fit this, but additionally going to schools that are trying to teach their students these techniques and making your cemetery available as a training ground. So that's what we did with the, the ground printing trading radar, we worked with a trades expert that was willing to teach college students how to engage with this technology. So that might be a method to cut down on the cost and also train a new generation on how to use these tools. Thanks Molly. We have a question about, you know, whether or not cleaning headstones and establishing the thinking that headstone should all be bright white can cause kind of long term damage to cemeteries in the future so, you know, with people expect them to be bright white. So will this encourage them to later start cleaning on their own and use the incorrect material. And this is an open question. I'll take that one. Yeah, and that's what I was saying when I talked about your site needs to decide what's sustainable for it. And as I mentioned before, I don't think running out and cleaning every headstones the right answer. It really depends on the look you're going for. I think cemeteries can absolutely be overclean. We don't recommend the use of any bleaches or any inappropriate cleaners I think most people who, at least that I found like I said I've worked with thousands of people on doing cleaning. I think most people and they clean with something like D2. When they're first done it's kind of, you know, it's lighter it's not exactly white by any means but it's cleaner. I think most people are pretty happy with that look. They've never had anyone sit back and say, you know, not clean enough for me I want to, I want to, you know, do it over. And one of the things is just education. I definitely don't think, you know, a 15 minute talk on this is enough to get someone out there to start doing it. It was really more about not doing certain things and but I think anyone who's interested this should take a class should go out and clean. It's not terribly difficult to learn how to do it the right way. It's actually very very simple. And then, you know, that responsibility of going on to teach other people the right way to do it. And, you know, how clean is that stone ever going to get, you know, historic marble who's been sitting out for 200 years is never going to look. You know, and in the past something like Arlington that were so blamely white, the reality is those those zones were replaced on a regular basis because they were used the past they use daybreak, which is 72% sodium hyper chloride so super concentrated bleach and pressure wash and then they just replaced on a regular basis, and the army and the VA has stopped doing that. And I would say that, although we can hope that if the experts put out the word don't don't don't over clean that that's going to stop people from cleaning people are going to do it on their own. So I think it's really critical that, you know, we spread the word as much as possible as to how to do it correctly. It's kind of a human instinct I think to want to clean headstones. Regardless what we hope to encourage people. I'm absolutely right Mary people are going to clean no matter what. So the best thing is trying to get good words out because I still talk to people almost every day who are bleaching and grinding and things like that so really just trying to get. You know the word out the right things to do. Jason on that note logic cleaner is that okay to use. I'm actually googling that as we speak speak because I've never heard of that cleaner. All right, plug it into the chat when you're done. Okay. All right. We have a question regarding interpretation is there a concern that bringing attention to a cemetery could put an endanger by putting it quote on the radar vandals, especially with rural cemeteries where there may not be neighbors close by to keep an eye on it. I really would say that interpretation if anything does more to discourage vandalism, because it brings more people aware to the fact that the cemetery is there and exists more people keeping an eye out. And they can identify vandalism really quickly if it happens. But the vandals already know that the cemeteries are there. We may think that, you know, we are the only people who know about the small rural cemetery but I guarantee that there are, you know, chat boards online where people are like hey found this great rural cemetery let's check it out. I know at Oakland which is not a perpetual care cemetery. You know, prior to 1976 when the foundation was founded, the cemetery despite not having any programming no tours, you know, very hands off relationship between the city and the cemetery the city owning the cemetery. And the vandalism still happened. Vandalism happens. It's, it's something that people do. But the more people that you can kind of bring into the site. Often that it appears that you know people see the vandalism more, but that's actually because you have more eyes on it, and you can see it when it happens and you can address it when it happens. You know vandalism at a site where people don't visit very often often goes kind of under the radar for longer and people don't realize it's happened. I also think especially in October. It can be really great to hold programming in your cemetery because it discourages the kind of opportunistic people who want to be in the cemetery and are up to no good. But if on Halloween night you are lighting up the cemetery brightly you have tour guides, you have visitors that are interested in learning about the history. People aren't going to have as much of an instinct to sneak on site and do damage because there's people there that are going to see them. I would say, although I completely understand the concern. It kind of is the opposite of fact that programming tends to lower the rates of vandalism and raises the ability to address vandalism in the immediate. I want to add to something really quick to that, Mary, I totally agree with you and I think working with youth groups really help helps to decrease vandalism, because a lot of times I work with a lot of youth groups. The first thing I asked was how many have ever been to the cemetery and almost never and people don't even bring their children to to funerals any longer. And so almost done so became comes this place of fear, we see it horror movies and it's the scary place to come, and they get older and they drink beer they knock things over and that. Reaching them at a young age and showing them the beauty of the cemetery. I have found has really decreased vandalism is if only one kid in that group, maybe came to a program and fell in love with a monument and the beauty of the carving. They're more likely to stop the other ones going whoa this isn't a scary place this is a really cool place. Let me bring my family back out my friends back out. So, definitely bringing people out I think really does help. Absolutely. Let's see. Now please refresh us for how is the cemetery site defined as historic. Thank you. I mean there really isn't one way to define the cemetery is historic. Jason you want to hop in on that. In. I mean, technically if it's over 50, you know 100 years old it's historic that has people have noticed historic if it has. You know, architecture that makes it significant it's historic, but it to me. Everyone who's buried there is important. Everyone has a family member or someone they love, or, you know, some somebody that's important to them or important to history in some way so to me, all the cemeteries are historic and should be valued as such. Whether it's allegedly listed on national register or something like that. You know, make that's a different idea but I think, I think all cemeteries are historic by nature just because of the value of the monuments of the people that are in. Absolutely. I think a lot of the work that you all do with the hope crew kind of brings that home to as well. The meaning that it holds for communities. Yeah, absolutely by making those spaces available to a younger audience that's one way just as Jason touched on, but also engaging the community, a lot of times they don't know the stories that lie right there in their neighborhood. In these cemeteries, important people that were buried there are people that help not only form their communities but also their state their countries, and creating a connection to the spaces with the community is a really great way to also protect the site because once somebody knows there are more apt to return and assist in making sure that site is staying clean staying accessible and open to the public. And it also can be a safety concern, you know if if you want to bring people on site but there's toppled overhead stones or kind of busted up pathways. Is there anything this is open question tips of the trade. Is there anything you can use to help read a stone that is otherwise unreadable even after cleaning something that would highlight the lettering that is still there. For me that one of the things that I do commonly and it really works. A couple of things. One, there's all kinds of filters on your cell phone now that work really well you can go in the filter settings and turn it to negative and highlight. So our phones are amazing resource that help a lot. Another thing is bringing light out to the cemetery. So one thing is a photo reflector, but we talked a little bit about this in our last webinar so if you want to go back and watch that when there's a few tips for photography but bringing a mirror or a reflector out getting about a raking light across the lettering really helps. Another is to go out. It's not a real overcast day or if you have permission to go out at night, using a flashlight, not your cell phone but a real flashlight that has, you know, a directional beam and actually shining that directly across the headstone will leave shadow lines and all the lettering and that's a great way to be able to read. I, you can read headstones that you didn't think ever had anything on them. I picked that up from archaeologists that's how they photograph and draw the higher lifts and carvings, like South America things that that is by putting these, these large work lights across. So that really does help. And don't do rubbings. Don't do rubbings or someone in the chat says, you know, flower and shaving cream, all of that can cause damage. All that's bad. Yeah, a lot of volunteer people do do do rubbings and it's very bad. Okay, so we have a question. Can you recommend a good source pertaining to stewardship and preservation of cemeteries in archaeological context. My colleagues and I work with management of isolated burials and grave sites associated with national historic trails and remote localities. If geophysical investigations reveal anomalies that are likely to be unmarked graves, would it be a preferred approach to leave these unmarked so as to protect them from unauthorized excavation. So what period gravestones that what period gravestones that do remain are derived from small sandstone slabs which are friable and we don't clean them but they were vandalized with paint. So what cleaning approach would you recommend. Um, okay, so starting with the first question, do you recommend good source pertaining to stewardship and preservation of cemeteries and archaeological context. I would contact your local state historic preservation office and find out who so someone in your state should be assigned that that is their job so usually historic cemeteries falls under archeology. So if I were to talk to them, I would start there, talking to your local state Chippewa officer about the archaeological context of those cemeteries. The other is I probably would leave those graves unmarked. Well mark them in GPS, you know, come up with a system that you know where they are, share someone like your show. But I wouldn't put any kind of physical marker there as they are. And then, you know, my lab a natural, they probably don't have much engraving left on them. So then what I would recommend if they are vandalized with paint, what cleaning approach would you recommend. So removing paint is a very difficult question because it totally depends on the type of the paint, how long it's been on there is was the stone wet when it was when it was painted lots of different things. I feel free to contact me or professional conservator. If it does actually happen. So there's lots of different ways but it really there's a lot of factors that help us decide what what resources to use to remove paint. So that's one I'm always sort of scared to give a generic answer use this because one time it might work great and the next time it doesn't do anything. So if that does happen, send a picture drop an email. I'll ask you some questions and then we'll go from there. I would also say that there is kind of a instinct also, you know, if people find a old cemetery and they're small headstones or there's no headstones. There's such an instinct to go in and add headstones to change it to improve it. But oftentimes you really lose a lot of the cultural, you know, cultural significance of the site when you go in and try to make drastic changes as well. So, why do you why does is headstone cleaning recommend to start from the bottom up. Why do they recommend to start from the bottom. If you have a small marker does not matter. If you get a larger marker. It's a sound counterintuitive but I promise it works. If you clean from the top and work down all the dirty water runs down and gets more absorbed into the dirty stone. So you're actually going to do a lot more work once you get lower onto a stone. If you clean from the bottom and work up you have a clean surface you have your you know your biological mass has gone things like that and the the water as you rinse will run off much quicker and it will not absorb into it. So small markers anything below about two or three feet. I'd say three feet doesn't matter. You can clean them top bottom bottom top doesn't matter. As you get to taller ones. It really does work better to clean from the bottom and work your way up. Okay, Molly and Jason. Can you explain further how rubbings are bad for markers. I'll let Jason as a conservator talk on that one. Um, so they're not always bad. But generally speaking, we try to avoid them. Last night I went to a talk here at AGS that showed these horrible blackened marbles where someone didn't know what they're doing and coated it completely in carbon so it. So, the reality is done well it's probably you know done well by a professional who knows what they're doing it is really checked out the stone, you're probably gonna be okay. The reality is most people see it they want to do it, and I've worked behind so many people to remove crayons from grave markers. I have seen grave markers markers toppled over by someone pressing too hard to try to do a rubbing. I've seen people put metal clips on them and scratch them trying to put their paper on them. So I think the reality is, it's the classic case if you really know what you're doing you're probably going to be okay. But so the chance of the damage is is really large. It's definitely not something I'd recommend for school groups. I see that a lot. Like I said, I've had to remove a lot of crayon over the years from that exact thing. This is a great Veterans Day project. So, as a general rule we say, you know no rubbing a lot of cemeteries another thing people don't think about you actually need permission to do rubbing there, unless it's your own family, and most cemeteries will not give you permission because of the potential for damage. Also, if a marble headstone is showing a lot of sugaring than that physical where can be really damaging as well anything that, you know, kind of rubs against the marker as well. A lot of slates and brown stones actually delaminate so they have a, you can, we sort of sound before we work on to listen for delamination, but a lot of times that rubbing will actually pop that delamination off by pushing on it. So that's another thing that's why a lot of places in New England outlawed rubbing years ago because of people pushing on and popping that thin layer between and getting delamination because of that. Jason, there is a question directly for you about what white, what large white spots can indicate on on stone. I saw that one that's hard to answer that a photograph feel free to show me a send me a photograph. It's probably a lichen. I, that's what jumps in my mind. Instantly I see a lot of that sort of these lichens of really thin, very white or very really light green that start and they grow into these large. circular areas. So it's probably a lichen and if so, if it's granted really not going to do any harm to it. If you want to remove it something just water and a brush to take them off. D2 would definitely take it off. But yeah, feel free to send a photograph but I suspect it's probably a lichen. Holly what are some photogrammetry apps that you recommend and what's their ease of use and functionality. Sure I plugged in some of the links in the chat that's more for the software. But if you go to your app store and and look in the photogrammetry apps look for free you'll find one one we've used is called mesh room. It's called mesh room but it's an instead mushroom, and it works well with the software that can augment the data to create those 3d models. But Google it you'll you'll find a lot of great free resources, but the software is the thing that is more important because you can even use your personal photos to to plug into certain spots. So if you've taken them in the accurate positioning and plug those into those software. It is easier when you have the app is kind of directing you how to to take the photos. But it's the software that usually is the most expensive so check out some of those software recommendations that we plugged into the chat. Absolutely. There is a question about methods for locating graves where the headstones have been moved. There's one where we had great success with the ground penetrating radar, and there are several methods of acquiring that data and using different filters to to figure out where those burial plots are. So that would be one method again it's not an inexpensive method, but maybe working with a school that's tea and archaeology school that's teaching that technique might be a way to offset some of that cost. Do you all have any good resources for ledger cleaning and repair. Um, if it depends on what you're cleaning off but if it's general biological that it's, there's no difference in cleaning that repair again ledgers can be made a variety of different ways maybe they're on the ground maybe they're on a box fault maybe they're a tabletop. So feel free to send a picture and I can get better recommendations that way. Yeah, it would have to see a picture if one could answer that. Absolutely. Jump in really quickly and go back a step and highlight a project in which they used cadaver dogs to find a missing grave. The burial plot was somewhere in the vicinity, headstones were missing, and it wasn't an expensive way to know that there were people buried there and then go back later when they have the funds raised to do the ground penetrating radar to locate the actual graves themselves but it helped them zero in on the area that they knew was there but didn't know exactly where. Yeah, absolutely. I've seen that done before it's really cool. All right, so I did notice that we had in the chat a few questions about access to sites and ownership I really encourage you all to check out our first webinar in the series which is can be found on the preservation web forum. And if you'll pull up the PowerPoint again for me please. Next slide. If you all have any additional questions you know please feel free to reach out. Plop the emails into the chat, certainly willing to continue this conversation and you know provide what assistance we can to the cemetery community. The upcoming webinars include the June 29 state historic tax credit webinar, which highlights opportunities for affordable housing and sustainability. We also have a forum member only series which is everything you want to know about saving places but we're afraid to ask with experts from the National Trust, which is coming up in July and August. Next slide please. Again, as Jason mentioned. We have our documenting historic gravesites conference, documenting historic gravesite workshop at the password conference which is being held this year in DC, November 8 through 10th as well and then we have our workshop which will be November 10 with a work day on November 11. Now the registration information has been plugged into the chat. Oh, real quick, I think Jason did want to answer one more question before we hopped off today Jason please feel free to hop back on. Sure I got a minute to read some of them. I'll answer this one question. Linda Ellis asked a question regarding using D to. So it seems like a lot of people are trying are using Orvis soap to clean a headstone and then treating it with D to as a bio side. And the question is, is this really necessary. The answer is it actually you negate the, the use of D to. So Orvis for those who don't know Orvis is an ionic detergent. It's made for cleaning horses, perfectly safe for headstones, no problem. But it doesn't contain a biocide so all you're going to do is remove the soiling and the dirt, and it's not going to do anything to stop biological growth from coming back, but completely safe. No worries. D to has a detergent so it has a surfactant it'll do the exact same thing Orvis did, plus add a biocide now the reason people want to clean Orvis first is it's super inexpensive. D to is is definitely more costly. So the idea is to scrub with Orvis and then treat it with D to the reality is that doesn't work, because you for one we don't like mixing chemicals. We don't want to try to, you know, mix two chemicals together, or even that close to each other, but cleaning with Orvis first. You've now left an ionic film basically an analytic film rather on the headstone. The D to isn't going to work at all. It's going to very minimal effect it's not really going to get in there and do its thing. So you really kind of wasted the D to on it. So I don't recommend it. If you're just going to clean with Orvis just clean with Orvis just know the biological growth is going to come back. If not, if you're worried about it, you should just clean with D to be done with it. Mixing the two a another thing is, I don't like cleaning these stones more than we have to. So some people are scrubbing them twice that's also not a good thing for the stone. So I would either stick with just Orvis and know the biological growth is coming back, or just use D to and, and, but not next to you. You're, you're, you're canceling each other out. There's more about that on our November 11 workshop day on cleaning in DC. You can get all the face time you want with Jason church and and access his knowledge, which is immense. Next slide please. Thank you so very much for everyone who joined us today. Thank you to our panelists. This was great to hear from you all. We have some links up on the slides, you can visit our website, look for webinar upcoming webinars as well as the webinar archives, including the recordings for our first two sessions of this webinar series. And if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to form online at saving places.org. But hope you'll have a great rest of your day. Thank you for joining us, and have a great rest of your day.