Congratulations to Deborah Wall our featured Volunteer of the Month for September, 2020! Deborah’s work has been centered in Columbiana County, Ohio where she has made a large impact photographing headstones. We’ve been told by other members that she is kind, generous and helpful. We’re grateful she’s part of the community!

Deborah’s interest in cemeteries grew when her mother asked her to help look for the burial location of her birth mother, Deborah’s grandmother. The search began in the early 1990’s, wandering through cemeteries and perusing cemetery records. The two of them continued on for years and then a friend introduced Deborah to Find a Grave. When she saw what others were doing she thought that while looking for her grandmother’s headstone she could help out in her community too. Over the years she has photographed over 10,000 headstones. She is often complimented on her personal touch of photographing the headstone with an arrangement of flowers placed nearby.

While visiting Deborah’s profile page we noticed how focused she was on her county and locality. It’s amazing to think of the time and energy she has volunteered to help others find their family members.

Deborah’s mother, Ira, passed on in 2000 but Deborah kept on searching for her grandmother’s grave and last year, in 2019, after nearly 30 years of searching, she finally found her burial location. In her own words, “I have come across so many wonderful people along my journey, all because of the Find a Grave site.”

Our accolades to you for your extraordinary work in cemeteries! We are so glad that you are a Find a Grave member and appreciate all your efforts in recording and memorializing those that have passed.

We welcome your suggestions for Volunteer of the Month. If you’d like to submit a volunteer for consideration in future months, please send an email with details of their work to feedback@findagrave.com.