Introduction to Tomb-talk

I wanted to open a series of discussions with some of the more prominent people involved in cemeteries and genealogy, primarily those on the Internet. Webmasters, list-coordinators, site editors are often known by no more than their e-mail address and the little musings on their websites. So, I set about creating a new department on the Column: Tomb-talk.

I hope to meet some of the Internet's more prominent people involved with cemeteries and genealogy and give them a more human quality so that we can think of them as real people, like the rest of us, and not just by an e-mail address. Of course, we are all familiar with Cyndi Howells and Lee Everton and the other well documented people, so I won't go there. Instead I will be focusing on the ones who won't otherwise achieve national fame, but yet are still pioneers of their fields.

I had actually conducted an interview with Paula Easton, the coordinator of Cemetery Photos back in August of 1999, and filed it under "Featured Articles". I took the liberty moving it to Tomb-talk. Thus, officially, that becomes the first entry into Tomb-talk

However, I kick off Tomb-talk with an interview with David Podmajersky of DistantCousin.com. David's website is a "portal" into the world of Internet Genealogy, but unlike other portals, David strives to serve the genealogist with a simple and well oragnized website design, and meticulously checks for broken links. Unlike other portals, that pride themselves on the number of links (40,000 links, 50,000 links, etc.), David sifts through the Internet to provide his visitors with the "meat", the sites that provide "real information". I'd like to believe that one day Quality will rise above Quantity, and perhaps David is a pioneer in the making.

Enjoy reading.

- Steve Johnson

Genealogy Links