Genealogists' Techniques for Reading Tombstones

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Tombstone Genealogy
by Melissa Clark Vickers

Remember friends as you pass by,
As you are now, so once was I,
As I am now so you must be,
Prepare for death and follow me.

Been to any good cemeteries recently? The older, the better--especially if you are researching your family tree. Tombstones can be a wealth of information-- not only for names and dates of the person buried there, but for glimpses into the lives of family members at the time of the person's death.

Grave markers run the gamut from simple wooden crosses to large rocks to towering spires to the smooth granite markers used most often today. Some have a frustrating lack of information, while others are goldmines.

I first became interested in "cemetery hopping" shortly after I married in 1978. My husband's family has lived in Carroll County in western Tennessee since the 1830s, and he had begun to collect information on his ancestors.

We made a trip to Huntingdon in July for our first wedding anniversary. Every morning, before it got unbearably hot, we'd head out to another cemetery to see what we could "dig up" about his family.

Bob had already done a lot of research on his family tree by talking with relatives who delighted in reminiscing about family members who had long since passed away. We knew many family names, and had a good idea where they were buried.

We started on the family property at a wonderful old family cemetery known as the "Bennett" cemetery. This was originally Bennett property until William Washington "Tobe" Vickers married Sarah Elizabeth Bennett in 1880.

There are 26 marked graves in the old cemetery, including nine marked only with a large rock at the head and foot of each grave. Most of the graves date to the mid to late 1800s. Recently, I came across a reference in a Bennett family history which indicates that two of the unmarked graves most likely belong to the original Bennett patriarch of Carroll County and his wife.

Carroll County was settled in the 1830s, so most of the cemeteries in this area date back to the years following the Civil War. The markers from this time period are the most fascinating.

A typical grave marker not only tells the name of the deceased, but often tells the name of the parents, spouse, birth and death dates, marriage dates, place of birth, and even the cause of death. Sometimes the cause is only hinted at as in this marker for five-year-old Samuel Williams:

Free from all care and pain
Asleep my body lies,
Until the final trumpet calls
The dead to Christ.

Some markers give a brief eulogy for the deceased. E.E. Tosh's tombstone declares:

He was a kind and affectionate
husband, a fond father, and
a friend to all.

Gertrude Vickers, a child of three at her death, has a marker that gives us a glimpse into the pain of the family left behind:

One precious to our hearts has gone,
A voice we loved is stilled,
A place is vacant in our home,
Which never can be filled.

Many of the epitaphs refer to the hope of "meeting" again with friends and family. Francis A Dalton's stone includes this poem:

Since thou canst no longer stay
To cheer me with thy love,
I hope to meet with thee again
In yon bright world above.

Reading these epitaphs is a treat, but sometimes they are all but lost by erosion and other deteriorations of time. We've used two different methods for discovering what is written on these older stones:

1. Rubbings. This is a technique familiar to most school children. It involves placing a sheet of paper on the grave marker, and then taking a crayon, minus the wrapper, and rubbing it sideways over the engraving. This produces some very beautiful images that capture the intricate stonework and texture of these old grave markers.

2. Flour. This is our favorite method of reading inscriptions on these old stones, and often works better than the rubbing technique. We used plain white flour (the cheaper the better) and rubbed it into the face of the tombstone, thus filling in the letters and dates as if they had been painted.

We could then either copy the information by hand, or take a picture of the marker. The flour washes out with the next good rainfall and so doesn't hurt the tombstone. Kids love doing this and it's a great way to get them involved in genealogy. It's probably a good idea to get permission to do this in larger cemeteries, however.

It is important to remember that what is carved into stone may not be "carved into stone." Just because a birth date or place of birth is engraved on a marker it doesn't guarantee accuracy. Even death dates may be wrong--they may actually be the date of interment rather than the date of death.

So use the markers as "stepping stones" and look for other sources and records to confirm the information, such as census and church records, old family bibles, death certificates, etc. We've been able to confirm relationships that we suspected by finding the information on a tombstone as well.

It's always especially exciting to find information on the place of birth or the wife's maiden name on the older tombstones since this information can be enough to push your search back one more generation.

I find a certain feeling of connection to my ancestors when I read their tombstones. I love the sense of history that these old graveyards encompass, and it is a shame that recent tombstones are so plain in comparison. They just don't make them like the one on Bob's great- grandmother's grave anymore:

Mollie, thou hast from me flown
To a region far above.
I to thee erect this stone,
Consecrated by my love.
Granville, oh for Jesus sake,
Forbear to dig the dust enclosed here.
Blessed be he who erects this stone,
Which marks the resting place for my bones.

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