Reading old gravestones

Reading a worn inscription safely

Light is your best tool. Many old stones face east, so morning sun crossing the face at a low angle can make shallow letters stand out. When the sun is in the wrong place, the Texas Historical Commission suggests using a mirror to angle sunlight across the stone. A large piece of white board or foil works the same way.

Photograph the stone from straight on and again with raking light from different sides. Zooming in on a good photo at home often reveals letters you could not see in person.

Never put chalk, flour, talc, shaving cream, or anything else on a stone to make the letters show. These materials are hard to remove and can carry oils, chemicals, or bacteria that damage the stone. Do not scrub with wire brushes or use household cleaners, and do not try to straighten a leaning stone yourself.

A word about rubbings

Gravestone rubbings, made by taping paper to the stone and rubbing it with wax, crayon, or charcoal, were once a popular hobby. They are risky on old stones: a weathered stone can crumble under the pressure, rubbing can wear away the surface, and some burial grounds forbid rubbings entirely. A good photograph records more and does no harm.

Ages in years, months and days

Many stones from the 1800s give an exact age, such as aged 63 y. 4 m. 12 d. or Ae. 63 years, 4 months and 12 days. With the death date, you can work backward to a birth date: subtract the days, then the months, then the years, borrowing a month when you need to, just as with subtraction by hand. A death on August 20, 1858 at 63 y. 4 m. 12 d. points to a birth around April 8, 1795.

Treat the result as a calculated date, not a recorded one. Carvers made mistakes, families misremembered, and different ways of counting a month can shift the answer by a day or two. Also note a phrase like in the 63rd year of her age. That means she had passed her 62nd birthday but not reached her 63rd, so she was 62.

Old Style dates and double years

Britain and its colonies used the old Julian calendar until 1752, when they switched to the Gregorian calendar we use today. Under the Calendar Act of 1750, eleven days were dropped that year: Wednesday, September 2, 1752 was followed by Thursday, September 14. The start of the year also moved. Before 1752 the legal year began on March 25, Lady Day, so dates from January 1 to March 24 belonged to the previous year in the old reckoning.

That is why colonial stones and records sometimes show a double year, such as died Feb. 10, 1735/6. It means 1735 in the old way of counting and 1736 in the modern one, and the practice is called double dating. When you record such a date, keep both years exactly as carved. Some stones are marked O.S. for Old Style or N.S. for New Style to make clear which system they use.

Words on the stone

Relict means widow or widower, the spouse left behind, so Mary, relict of John Ames tells you John died before Mary. Consort means husband or wife, and it does not tell you who died first. Wife of on a stone may still be used for a woman who outlived her husband. Abbreviations include aet. or ae., short for aetatis, for aged, and ob., short for obiit, for died.

Look for names of other family members on the same stone or on small footstones nearby. Children who died young were often added to a parent's stone, or given small stones in the same row.

Symbols: enjoy them, but read them carefully

Old stones are full of carved images: winged skulls and, later, winged faces on early New England stones, urns and willows from about 1780 into the mid 1800s, and emblems of fraternal groups such as the Masons or Odd Fellows.

It is tempting to read a whole life story into these, but be cautious. Carvers offered stock designs, and families often chose what was in fashion or what they could afford. A symbol can suggest a lead, such as membership in a lodge whose records might survive, but it is not proof. The same goes for an epitaph: it tells you what the family wanted to say, not necessarily what was true.

When was the stone carved?

A stone is not always as old as the death it records. Families often added a stone years later, replaced a worn one, or carved one stone for a whole family at once. A stone with a modern style for a death in the 1790s was probably made long after. When dates on a stone disagree with a church or probate record made at the time, the earlier record usually deserves more weight.