Episode 2.7 (JoAnn Kerr): Haunting Graveyards: Serious Work for a Genealogist

In season two of the "Finding Home" podcast series, Irish American Archives Society Executive Director Margaret Lynch interviews an array of Clevelanders with specialized knowledge and stories about the history of the Irish in Cleveland. This episode features an interview with JoAnn Kerr. Posting under the moniker "Irish JoKerr," Clevelander JoAnn Kerr is a major contributor to a crowd-sourced tool for family history researchers, Findagrave.com. Kerr shares on the podcast how she went from researching her own family to finding and sharing information about Clevelanders of Irish descent on a free website that first launched in 1995. Created to share burial information about individuals around the world, Findagrave can include photographs, obituaries, biographies, vital statistics, and links to other family members. JoAnn Kerr has generated more than 21,000 entries and adds about 50 per week, using such resources as cemetery and death records, death notices, and other public records.