Why Use Ohio Amish Cemeteries?
Many FindAGrave managers have understandably listed deceased Amish folks in the wrong cemetery. Below are some reasons this may have happened and what steps we have taken to correct the problems.
Name Confusion
There are some common Amish family names that are used as cemetery names, or at least part of the name, or part of an AKA name. So, for example if an obituary states that a person is buried in Miller Cemetery, it could be one of about 90 cemeteries that have the name Miller in them. or if an obituary states that a person is buried in Yoder Cemetery, it could be one of about 60 cemeteries that have the name Yoder in them. Other common names include Troyer, Hershberger, Raber, Mast, and a few others.
Documenting Cemeteries
To date, we have visited 252 Amish cemeteries to document who is buried in each cemetery. If they were pre-1975 cemeteries we started with the names listed in Leroy Beachy's book. Naturally many of the tombstones are no longer legible or are missing. With the help of FindAGrave we have deleted 11 bogus cemeteries that were created by other FindAGrave managers when they could not find the correct cemetery. We have also corrected many cemetery names, locations, and GPS coordinates. There are about 40 more cemeteries that are no longer in use and/or visible. Of the 252 cemeteries we have visited, 75 were not previously listed on FindAGrave. There are no doubt more that have yet to be found.
Wrong Cemeteries
We have found over 800 Amish folks listed in the worng cemetery by well-meaning FindAGrave managers. To date, 90% of these sites have been corrected thanks to the cooperation of FindAGrave managers and FindAGraveadministrators. We hope that in the future obituaries will more accurately list cemeteries in part because of this site.
(C) 2025 Bud Winn