Gwen Kelley, a librarian who specializes in genealogy and local history, will lead a seminar about the importance of cemetery records for family researchers at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, March 7, at the West Bank Regional Library, 2751 Manhattan Blvd., Harvey.

This event is free of charge and is open to the public. There is no registration.
Cemetery records and headstone inscriptions are also sources of birth and death information. The records of this type most commonly found are church burial registers, sextons’ records, cemetery deed and plot registers, burial permit records, grave opening orders, and monument (gravestone) inscriptions.
Such records usually supplement standard sources of genealogical information, but sometimes they represent the only information that can be found pertaining to the birth and death of an ancestor. Using these records effectively requires specific knowledge of their content, availability and location.
Kelley also will discuss an important website for cemetery records, Find-a-Grave.com, a website that features more than 150 million cemetery records, including photographs.
For more information regarding this event, contact Chris Smith, Manager of Adult Programming for the library, at (504) 889-8143 or wcsmith@jplibrary.net.