Albert and Loretta Bongiovi's Gravestone Photograph

One of the more interesting web sites I have run across in my most recent dive into our family history is Find A Grave. I've known for a while that there are people, usually genealogists or historians, who's hobby is to visit cemeteries and index who is buried there. Find A Grave assists those folks by giving a place to compile that data, but also goes one step further by encouraging volunteers to take photographs of the gravestones and by encouraging users to set up "virtual cemeteries" of the burials they are interested in and to leave "virtual memorials" for those who have died.

In any case, back in February, I came across this site and found that Albert Bongiovi and his wife, Loretta Bongiovi, were listed in this database. Albert and Loretta are my Great-Grandparents and, in fact, Loretta was alive when I was growing up -- I have clear memories of her visits and visiting her apartment in Queens.

There was no new information in the Find A Grave entry -- I already knew both of their Birth and Death dates and that they were buried at Long Island National Cemetery. But, more out of curiosity than anything, I used a Find A Grave feature to request a photo. With this feature, you request a photo, it gets put on a list of requested photos that volunteers can then pull (based on whatever search criteria they want to use). The volunteers then go out to the cemetery, snap the photo, and upload it to the site.

Bottom line: someone (Find A Grave user Paul1957) fulfilled my request. Here are the photos of Albert and Loretta Bongiovi's gravestone he uploaded two days ago. (Note that you are seeing the front and back of the same gravestone in these two photos.)

Click here to visit the "virtual cemetery" I set up on Find-A-Grave to track our ancestors. (WARNING: there seems to be a lot of pop up adds on that site. I recommend you do not click anything inside those pop up ads to avoid getting spyware on your computer.)