A Decade of Hard Work by Dedicated Volunteers

Negra Cemetery, Torrance County, NM

On September 12, 2011 we are 10 years old.  I don't know if I feel 10 years young(er) or 10 years old(er).  But ten years has brought great happiness to me as well as a sense of great accomplishment in New Mexico.

In March of 2001, my best friend Danielle Sengel and I decided to walk and record the beautiful Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Albuquerque.  It was so pleasant meeting in the mornings and plotting out the cemetery.  We quickly wrote down every stone in that cemetery.  And the people in the office at the cemetery were so gracious to us with their time and information that we felt we had done something well worth while.  A special 'hats off' to Rosina (manager) and Reno (ground crew) for their help and education.

But when we were finished, I knew there was more - you know "the rest of the story" or sequels.  We had several other cemeteries in the city and I just had to do them too!  The next one I wanted to work on was Mount Calvary, sister cemetery of Gate of Heaven.  It was also one of the Santa Fe Catholic Archdiocese cemeteries but much older than Gate of Heaven.  I was eager to begin....Danielle wasn't so sure.  Just about that time, the Albuquerque Journal newspaper contacted me and wanted to do a story on what I was trying to accomplish.  When the reporter talked with me, he suggested getting other people involved and forming a group.

I did have another life besides being in a cemetery every day so I decided to go ahead and try to get a group together.  Little did I know that there are MANY people very interested in being in cemeteries!  From the newspaper article I got many phone calls about the work, eagerly volunteering to join me!  In August I started putting together a group and set the first training session for September 12, 2001.  But on September 11, every American's heart was broken and our earth moved beneath us.  I questioned going on with this project, but a very kind lady called me and said she wanted to come anyway!  So on September 13 I held the first training session at a local library.  I think 12 people came to it, all eager to make a difference somehow in this crazy world.

Two weeks later I had another training session and another 15 people came to it.  It was at this session that Betty Lamberti came into my life.  She has stuck with this group from day one.  Dedicated and a hard worker!  By the first of October, a committed and trained group of 20 people were ready to write their hearts out.  Our first meeting was at Mt. Calvary and we all worked through the various problems we encountered both on the grounds and tombstones.  Oh, so many different ways to write a tombstone!  Another big thank you to the office staff of Mt. Calvary, especially Mr. Baca and Anna Cantwell who gave us tremendous support. 

It was right after this first group meeting that a gentleman called me and said he had been out of town and couldn't make either of the training sessions.  Would it be possible for him to still join us?  This is how I came to know Al "Wink" Winkeljohn.  I don't know if we would be as far along as we are today without Wink.  Since 2006 he has almost single handed found over 800 cemeteries in the state.  He has patiently located them, verified them, wrote directions and got GPS listings for them.  And he has another life too!  

Through the years, we have walked most of the cemeteries in Albuquerque (Gate of Heaven, Mt. Calvary, Fairview, Sunset, Sanchez/Romero, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Alameda/San Carlos, San Francisco, San Jose de Armijo, Los Padillas, Pajarito, Sandia Memory Gardens.  We've branched out to Torrance, Santa Fe, Sandoval and Socorro counties. 

In the Sandia Mountain area, we walked Carnuel/Santo Nino Cemetery, San Antonito, San Antonio de Padua, Golden, Tijeras, Saint Francis of Assisi at Golden.  Another of my very early volunteers was Sally Goehring.  She and Wink walked Chilil/St John Nepomunceno Cemetery, Canoncito, Cerro/Cedro, and Juan Tomas.

This group has never had any funding nor outside support and we are not a 501c(3) organization.  A few of my volunteers travel around the state and they kindly look out for cemeteries.  Many take pictures or verify the location of these far out sites.  But it is Wink who travels great miles, without being paid, just to find and verify a cemetery.  Last week he and his sister traveled to Dixon to find four cemeteries that had eluded us over the years.  Now we have pictures, GPS, names of the cemeteries and a feeling of accomplishment.  I try to find cemeteries in Quay and McKinley county. Anyone who knows this state knows how deserted and barren it is.  Most of the states cemeteries are on lonely dirt roads, miles from civilization, hot and dusty.   But truthfully, whenever Wink or Rich and I are travelling up/down a highway, our minds are always thinking, "what cemetery is near here - I need to stop there!" 

Through ten years of joy, hard work, friendships, trials, supportive friends and love, I take my hat off to these volunteers:
Danielle Sengel, Sally Goehring, Anne Hayward, Linda Hobart, Robin Hoffman, Herb and Sharon Palm, Sue Greene, Karen Twohig, Carolyn McMillan, Linda Ingram, Linda Sprague, Shirley Ash, Anthony Lohr-Valdez, Ruth Apodaca, Veronica Mercer, Connie Sirman, Betty Jo Minshall.  Whether you were with us for 3 months or a year, thank you. 

And to my dearest friends that have been with me for years, a huge bow, salute and heart-felt thanks to:
Al "Wink" Winkeljohn, Betty Lamberti, Gloria Henderson, Barb Borowy, Diane Bloom, Sharon Serrano, Marion "Lee" Miller.  You all have a special place of honor in heaven and history.  And a special thanks and hug to my husband who joined us in 2008 after he retired.  Rich has always supported me and this group.  Now he knows just what we've been up to all these years!


New Mexico Tombstone hours worked:
(I did not keep hours for the first 2 years, but we wrote over 10,000 graves)
2003 - 460 hours
2004 - 507 hours
2005 - 655 hours
2006 - 527 hours
2007 - 303 hours
2008 - 459 hours
2009 - 418 hours
2010 - 442 hours
2011 (so far) - 320 hours

We have found and verified 1,832 cemeteries in 33 counties, and have approximately 238,000 individual graves logged.  And we are no where near the end!  So many books, records, death certificates, obituaries yet to write!!

Encino Cemetery, Torrance County, NM

Special People known as ANGELS

Since I started this group in 2001, there have been about 40 people come into the group. And probably 35 of them over time have left. But the average 'angel' comes into this group and stays about 3 years. Then there are those who have been with me since 2001. Doggedly faithful and very dedicated. Perhaps you would like to meet some of these people who give up several mornings each month to come and honor those who have died.

This wonderful lady is Betty Lamberti. She was born in Albuquerque and has lived almost all of her life here. She joined my group with the very first training session which was September 12, 2001 (what a day to begin!). She has stuck with us through all kinds of weather and has never complained. She is also the consumate 'volunteer' as she helps several different groups. Very unselfish with her time. Her parents were Oreste and Minnie Marteno (buried at Fairview) and she had one sister (just passed away June 2010). Betty has a daughter (Monica) and a son (Robert) that live in Albuquerque. Betty retired from U.S. West (formerly AT&T) after working for them 30 years. Some places she has always wanted to visit are Rome, Egypt and Alaska. And Switzerland is her favorite place to go back and visit!

Her favorite book (and movie) is To Kill a Mockingbird and she loves Mexican and seafood. When asked why she has kept going with the Tombstone group all these years, she said it is always interesting work and she enjoys working with the people in this group. Her favorite time with the group is when we go back outside and walk the cemeteries.

Thank you Betty for all you have added to this group, all your work on San Juan county (you've almost single handedly written that one!) and your support!

Terrific people

We have met today (August 28) for the fourth time this month. We are currently working at the New Mexico Special Collections library for the past 3 months. It is way too hot to be out working on the cemetery grounds, so we are transcribing data from old, old records at this special library. Now this may sound boring, writing about all these deceased people, but the group of people that work with me make it exciting. And we make those deceased people come alive!

First of all, I want to thank my patient husband Rich who has worked with us since his retirement in late 2007. He doesn't like writing ad nauseum in notebooks or reading about all these 'old' folks that died, but he hangs in there. His hand may cramp, his rear get tired of sitting on the hard chairs, or get just bored, but he never complains - or quits! The fact that chocolates and candy are used for bribery each time help some too.

Another wonderful worker is Wink. He has been with my group since 2001! Yes, from day one he has stuck with me. He is pretty awesome too. Although he has another life (unlike me) he shows up all the time. He, too, writes tirelessly and puts up with our silly jokes and comments. But he enjoys the chocolates too. And he is a rare breed (kind of like me) in that he loves searching out new cemeteries. He and I have the National Geographic Topo maps on our computers and we are always emailing back and forth that we found a new one! He even gets in his car and goes and finds some!

Betty came to me at the very beginning of 2001 also. What a faithful friend she has been. She is a wonderful volunteer all over this city. She is very busy with volunteering at the State Fair, any election in the city, the Balloon Fiesta and even the theater. But she has always found time for Tombstone. And she always has a smile and great encouraging words for me. She is a good friend.

Gloria came to me about 3 years ago. She has never balked at any assignment given to her. She quietly sits (or walks) and gets everything done. And she is a wonderful source of translating Spanish for us. None of us speaks Spanish and at times the inscriptions and names get too much. You would think by now we would remember that enero means died....or is it born!?

Barb has been with me so long that I don't remember when she started. She drives a long ways to come to our meetings whether it is the library or cemeteries. Such a happy lady that her smile always gives me a lift. And she never complains about the length of the book she needs to transcribe. She enjoys history of our state and loves to find strange deaths!

And my most recent victim, eh, volunteer, is Lee. He is an amazing man. He and his wife travel all around the world! He has just come back from Kenya and stunned us all with his pictures and tales of the trip. We are all living/traveling vicariously through him. A retired German professor, he is a joy to have in our group - and I know Wink and Rich welcome another male!

To everyone who has ever volunteered with this group, you have my eternal thanks. I know you have all put up with cold feet, freezing fingers, sun scorched necks, wet feet, sprinklers that suddenly come to life as well as holes that open up into the earth to trip you. I give you all a huge HUG and my love! God Bless you!!

Getting the work done

I have finally found some wonderful people to help me with Tombstone Transcription data entry. Over the eight years that we have been collecting data, I have been the only one to enter data into the computer.

About six months ago, a wonderful lady by the name of Rachel Rumschlag was introduced to me and she worked long and hard to create a database for Tombstone. We have so many names that we were running out of space on Excel spreadsheets. Now we have a wonderful database that I can get all our cemeteries merged into. It takes a bit of work to move them from a spreadsheet into the database, but will be worth it in the end. We will now be able to search for names alphabetically and not search through 100's of cemeteries one at a time.

I have also met a fantastic group of people who are offering to help enter this data. One of them is Shirley Ash. At this point (August 2009) we have over 100 notebooks full of information that need to be added. I did a mass training Saturday (August 15) and 8 people signed up and attended. I also trained 3 additional ladies that want to help. Hopefully, these 11 people will take notebooks home and enter the data. We should be able to get through all the notebooks in about 6 months.

After they send the information to me it still takes awhile to get it ready to upload to the internet and merge into the database. But this has to be alot quicker than me entering all the data myself.

How it began

My name is Cheryl Harris and I live in Albuquerque, NM. I have longed to finish my personal genealogy for over 15 years but not had much luck. And because of that, I decided to do something that would help others in their search for parents, siblings, grandparents, great grandparents and all those that have been lost through death.


In 2001 I started the volunteer group Tombstone Transcription Project for New Mexico. I have a solid group of volunteers that have worked continuously since 2001 gathering information from every death source we can find. We have walked cemeteries and written down every tombstone/headstone we found. We have visited cemeteries that have only one visible stone left after a hundred years of weather. We have gathered more than 900 sources of information from the Special Collections Library listing mortuary, death certificate and family information.

Our group has gathered over 350,000 names in our eight years of work. All of this is eventually transcribed and posted to the internet for the world to see.

During the hot summer months here in the desert, as well as when there is snow on the ground, you will find our group in the library. The rest of the time we are joyously walking cemeteries writing down information. We love to be outside!

My wonderful group of volunteers has persevered through wind, sprinklers, mud, holes, drunks, stones that are almost totally unreadable, freezing temperature or unbearable heat. These people are heroes in my mind and I'd like to list them here for all to give them thanks. Some of my dedicated volunteers are:

Wink Winkeljohn
Gloria Henderson
Betty Lamberti
B.J. Minshall
Barbara Borowy
Richard Harris

With this blog, I would like to keep you informed of our progress as well as any surprises we come across. If you would like information, or any of the names we've found, please contact me through posting comments.