The Political 
Graveyard


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Biographical Checklist and Submission Guidelines

I am pleased and honored to accept nominations of people and submissions of information for the database and web site. The information and corrections I have received from users of the web site has made The Political Graveyard more complete, more accurate, and more useful to its millions of visitors.

The following guidelines should explain the process a bit.

First, note that (though I have some volunteer assistance for data entry), the person who is responsible for everything is me, including receiving and responding all email, writing and debugging all programming, accepting new records into the database, putting new pages online, and so on.

I am very dedicated to this project, but I also have a full time job as County Clerk/Register of Deeds, responsible for a staff of 55 and millions of records. Moreover, I have a family, including a 8-year-old daughter; and my wife and I are homeowners, which entails the usual maintenance tasks. Inevitably, when other things come up, I fall behind answering email and updating the web site, and I can only ask that you be patient with me.

You can provide the information in whatever form you choose. My first preference is plain text via email (to polygon@potifos.com), but you could also send image files (photographs of gravestones, scans of obituaries, etc.), or photocopies via postal mail (P.O. Box 2563, Ann Arbor MI 48106).

It doesn't work to send citations to reference works or microfilmed newspapers not easily available to me and tell me to look it up. I do spend a lot of time on research, but I'm still concentrating on those sources which will yield information on many people at once. I may get to your citations eventually, but I am already 50 years old, and I don't know how much time is left to me to work on this project.

Some people find it easiest to go through the biographical checklist (below) and answer each question. Eventually I will make this a clickable form, but in the meantime, it's probably easiest just to cut-and-paste the questions into email and type in the answer after each one.

Others would rather send photocopies of obituaries, biographical sketches, or other narrative material and let me find what I need. That's okay too.

Feel free to use whatever approach works for you.

If you type information from other sources into email, please take a moment to carefully proofread what you have typed, especially the exact spelling of names (people and places) and dates. Variations in these are a constant headache, not only for me, but for everyone who does historical research.

And again, many thanks for your help!

And now, without further ado, the biographical checklist:


"Enjoy the hospitable entertainment of a political graveyard."
Henry L. Clinton, Apollo Hall, New York City, February 3, 1872
The Political
Graveyard

The Political Graveyard is a web site about U.S. political history and cemeteries. It is the Internet's most comprehensive source for American political biography, listing 180,022 politicians, living and dead.

The Political Graveyard is created and maintained by Lawrence Kestenbaum, of Ann Arbor, Michigan, who is solely responsible for its structure and content. Web hosting is provided by Paul Haas, of Ypsilanti, Michigan. The site opened on July 1, 1996; the last full revision was done on June 16, 2008.