Preservation Resources
There are many groups dedicated to preserving gravestones. There are also many professionals who are trained at repairing and preserving gravemarkers. Most charge a fee for their services. But any well meaning group can make a huge difference in cemetery upkeep by simply removing trash, trimming foliage (but be careful of mowers and weed-wackers that might damage the stones), and photographing individual stones for a permanent record of inscriptions.
If you are interested in preserving a cemetery, please visit the following off-site links:
1. The Chicora Foundation, a non-profit heritage preservation organization that does cemetery preservation work for a fee. They are based in South Carolina, but they work on projects throughout the southeast.
2. Saving Graves Learning Lab, which contains a series of articles on how to preserve cemeteries and gravestones. This site contains a lot of links to other sites that discuss how to document cemetery information.
3. How to clean a gravestone. From the "Saving Graves" website. It includes important information on the damage that any powerful cleaning agent can have on a gravestone.
4. The Association for Gravestone Studies holds annual workshops on cemetery preservation and sells several books that contain instructions on cemetery preservation for the non-professional.