Inscribed in stone does not guarantee the information is correct. It reflects what was known by the person paying for the tombstone inscription. What they knew may have been correct–as it is in the illustration.
Or what was given to the stonecutter was incorrect. Or the stonecutter could have made an unintentional error. Remember that humans provide information to other humans who inscribe that information on tombstones.
Join Michael at either the Allen County Public Library in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, or the Family History Library in Salt Lake City this summer!
2 Responses
My grandmother aged 6 years between her death and her gravestone. I presume the kids didn’t know that there was a huge age difference between her and my grandfather. Having her be 6 years older than she really was was probably their best guess. My other grandmother was a year older than her gravestone. Perhaps to make the age difference between her and her older sister jive with the parent’s marriage. Sister was one of those 5 month babies but no one back home probably knew as she had moved away.
My Grandmother’s sister’s age got shaved by 10 years on her gravestone to make her appear to be about the same age as her husband instead of nearly 10 years older. In that case, the birth is recent enough (1910) that there’s a birth certificate and all other sorts of evidence consistent with that year of birth (including her military records).