Educated Rabbit Revisted 9/8/2011

Cemetery and Funeral Home Reviews 
By Sheri Fenley

Think about the last time you had interaction with the staff at a cemetery.  Did you have a good experience?  Perhaps the person you dealt with won the "Ms. Crankypants of the Year" award recently.  Well now there is a place to record your experience, good or bad, happy or sad.
Cemetery and Funeral Home Reviews asks the question, "How Responsive is Your Cemetery?"  This website, owned by Sherry Hightower, is set up for people to place comments about services rendered or request for information from cemetery and funeral home staff.  Somewhat like a movie or restaurant review. 

When last I visited the site, all of the reviews were about places in Texas, however Sherry says that she just signed up a woman from Florida and a gentleman from Arizona and adds that reviewers from every state are encouraged.  (2011 update:  additional states are now covered, but still not complete at this time.)Sherry welcomes people to write reviews about their experience.  In fact she is looking for people to submit reviews on a regular basis.  For this, she even supplies a business card identifying you as a reviewer for the website.

The CFHR site isn't just for negative reviews but it is also a place to give kudos to the cemetery staff who are so helpful.  Sherry says, "If your readers have a cemetery they visit often to fulfill request for headstone photos and they are treated well, I encourage them to submit a review and give that cemetery a virtual pat on the back."

After reading the reviews on the site, it is clear that most people have had a good experience when dealing with staff from cemeteries.  It is also very clear that most cemeteries are severely understaffed and the requests for information is becoming overwhelming.  Her goal is to have all the states represented. She also plans to offer a Certificate of Appreciation to the cemetery offices that consistently help the volunteers.

Ms. Hightower said that the idea of a cemetery review site had been on her mind for sometime, but it took an unpleasant experience at a Houston cemetery office to "light a fire."  She created the site that night. The cemetery has since corrected the issue, changing their rating from an "F" to an "A+."
Most volunteer headstone photographers or genealogists have no idea of the reception they will receive if they are visiting a cemetery for the first time and need a grave site location. Volunteers are conducting a service, often for family or friends who live outside of driving distance to the cemetery. They should be treated with respect and a smile. The cemetery has been paid for their services, which doesn't end when the funeral is over. Who knows, they may be looking at their future customers with the volunteers, so they need to treat them nicely.

Sherry Hightower has been involved in genealogy and family research since 1982, when it was paper, pencils, letters with a SASE, and many trips to the library.  She related one recent success story about helping a young man living in the Czech Republic with locating descendants of his great grandfather's siblings who all came to Texas. Only his great grandfather stayed behind. It took a few weeks, but she found a cousin living in Burleson, Texas. She connected with this young man through her  "Texas History Hunters" group on Facebook.