A woman obsessed with visiting cemeteries across the world admits she feels ‘sorry’ for people who don’t understand her morbid hobby.
For Traci Rylands, graveyards are places of history, beauty and forgotten stories. The 58-year-old from Atlanta, Georgia, has spent years visiting hundreds of cemeteries across 35 US states, as well as the UK and Canada.
Along the way she has photographed graves for families, uncovered remarkable forgotten lives and developed an appreciation for the quiet perspective cemeteries can offer.
Her unusual passion began when she was an intern at her local newspaper while at university, where she wrote obituaries and worked with funeral homes.
Years later, after the birth of her son, she came across Find a Grave – Millions of Cemetery Records , the crowdsourced website that documents burial locations and memorials.
“I learned you could volunteer to go out and photograph graves for people,” she says. “If someone had an aunt buried way up in Scotland and couldn’t visit, someone local could help. I thought that sounded really cool and it would get me out of the house.”
One of her first projects involved documenting the graves of enslaved people’s descendants buried near a former plantation. It sparked a fascination that has only grown.
As she explored more cemeteries, Traci found herself researching the people behind the headstones. She began writing up their stories and sending them to descendants or publishing them on her blog Adventures in Cemetery Hopping.
“There’s always a new adventure out there and a new story to learn. I don’t know many people digging into these stories, and it keeps my mind fresh and my writing skills sharp,” says Traci.
“I’ll go and explore, take lots of pictures, then go home and start researching. Even the dates tell me something. If someone died in 1918 or 1919, there’s a good chance they were a victim of the Spanish flu, and they may have a story waiting to be uncovered.”
As a lover of history, one discovery in Nebraska stayed with her.
“It was a young couple in their twenties who died within a week or two of each other. I looked them up and discovered they had both died during the Spanish flu pandemic. I found a newspaper article saying their funerals were held in the middle of town because they were so loved, and the whole community was devastated,” says Traci.
“If I hadn’t looked that up, their story might have been forgotten.”
She believes every grave, no matter how modest, has the potential to tell an important story.
“Even cemeteries without elaborate stones, just tiny grave markers, are fascinating. Sometimes the only thing a person has left behind is that marker,” says Traci.
“Some weren’t in the census. There’s no paperwork, no newspaper articles. They didn’t do anything famous, but they meant everything to their family. If I can share even the most obscure story, maybe I’m shedding a little light on something that otherwise wouldn’t be known. That’s what keeps me doing it.”
Her travels have taken her to the graves of presidents, civil rights leaders and literary heroes, and on holidays her friends and husband Chris know there will be detours.
As someone who isn’t outdoorsy or into camping, cemeteries offer a different venue to escape the daily grind, Traci says. For Traci, cemeteries are living museums.
“They go beyond the time you’re living in now. Everything today is so fast – the internet, information, food, cities. Cemeteries aren’t fast. You can slow down, walk through and simply soak it all in,” she says.
“I’m trying to visit all of the US presidents’ graves. I’ve done about half so far. I’ve also visited Martin Luther King Jr.’s grave.”
She and her husband Chris, both keen readers, made a point of visiting C.S. Lewis’s grave in Oxford.
“We also went to Westminster Abbey, where Queen Elizabeth I is buried on top of her sister Mary, who she hated. I thought that was hilarious. She really got the last laugh.”
And while many assume graveyards must be eerie places, Traci insists that isn’t her experience.
“I get asked if I talk to spirits. No, I don’t. I know people who do, and there’s a place for that, but that’s not what I do,” she says.
“There are people who like ghost stories and being scared. That can be fun, but it’s not why I go.”
“There have been times when I’m looking for someone’s grave and I don’t know exactly where it is. I’ll quietly think, ‘Help me find you,’ then let it go. Nine times out of ten, I find it. Whether that’s luck or something else, I don’t know.”
And while some people accuse her of being ghoulish, she says graveyards are not macabre places.
“I know people who think cemeteries are gloomy, and I honestly feel sorry for them,” says Traci.
“The Victorians designed park-like cemeteries where people could read a book, have a picnic or take a Sunday walk while visiting loved ones. They weren’t meant to be depressing. There’s so much beauty there if you look for it.”
She enjoys the unexpected humour she sometimes finds.
“I love finding a husband buried between two wives. Even rarer is finding a woman with two husbands buried either side of her.”
As for her own final resting place, Traci still hasn’t made up her mind.
“I may have my ashes placed in a cemetery near my family because it’s such a beautiful place. But honestly, I don’t know.”
And one cemetery she visits more regularly than others, this time with flowers rather than a camera and notebook, is that of her father, Larry.
“When my dad died, he’d been ill for a while. We went to choose his burial plot, came home, and half an hour later, at exactly noon, he died,” says Traci.
“We’d read scripture with him and all said what we wanted to say. He couldn’t speak anymore, but we knew he could hear us. He died peacefully with all of us around him.
“That moment will stay with me forever.”
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