In late 2023, Save the Graves received a Veterans TOT mini grant to perform several veterans-related cemetery projects in Placerville Union Cemetery.
The identification project started with a copy of El Dorado County’s interment database. Two years ago, a “veteran flag” was added to the database but there was never a systematic effort to populate the flag. We hoped that a simple match of known burials with VA records might indicate which Union Cemetery interments were veterans. No such luck. Identifying Union Cemetery veterans required manual research, lots of it.
Field Surveys
Save the Graves volunteers walked the cemetery to identify obvious veteran burials by the presence of a VA marker or an indication of military service on the non-VA headstone.
Field work was complicated by some data anomalies along with the lack of good plot-level maps. One Save the Graves volunteer created multiple large format worksheets for each section; almost 50 worksheets printed on ledger-sized paper stock.
Compiling the Results
Results were manually compiled into a spreadsheet with more than 7,000 names. Known veterans, children who died before the age of 15 and women who died before WWI were then excluded. Nearly two months after starting, we had a list of more than 5,700 names that still might be veterans.
Additional Research
The remaining names had to be manually researched to determine if it was a veteran. Fortunately, we were able to recruit volunteers at the LDS Family Search Center in Placerville to help. The effort required hundreds of hours of research and several months to complete. Ultimately, 815 veterans were identified. That list was provided to County Cemetery Administration. A Save the Graves volunteer is updating the county interment database with our results.
Veterans Without Headstones
The next phase of our project entails identifying veterans with no headstone. Each of the 815 veteran’s graves was located and examined to determine/confirm whether a headstone of any type was present. In the end, 41 veterans with unmarked headstones were identified.
Identifying Living Descendants
Our attention turned to identifying living descendants to assist them with acquiring a headstone from the VA. The VA requires specific documentation before approving a headstone request. The type of documentation and who can request it varies depending on when the veteran served. Identifying living descendants can be difficult and our researchers are actively engaged in this phase of the project. Once the headstone request is approved by the VA, it will be shipped to the County Facilities Department, then transported to the cemetery and installed by some combination of contractors and Save the Graves volunteers at no cost to the family.
First Veteran Headstone Installation
In November 2024, the first VA-issued headstone was installed for Henry Culbertson.
Several more headstone requests are pending VA approval. Research continues for the remaining veterans with no headstones. We anticipate completing this last phase of the veteran projects in May 2025.