After last week’s inadvertent repeat, I took great care to check before starting this week’s post for the 52 Ancestors Challenge. Why, look at this! The prompt for Week 46 in 2022 was “Tombstones”!
Just because it’s written in stone doesn’t mean it’s correct.
A prime example in my tree is the headstone for my mother’s maternal grandfather, Heronimus Michael Lerner (1895 – 1954), who went by Jerome. However, the headstone on his grave is in memory of “Ronimus Lerner”. It’s clear that there had not been a preceding “Je” that wore away or that had been otherwise removed.
Another example is in the nearby Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Cemetery in Rastadt, Saskatchewan, where a number of my mother’s ancestors and relatives are interred. The marker for my mother’s great aunt, Marianne Roeder, says she died “6/21/29” (June 21, 1929). However, church records show that she died on June 2, 1921 and was buried July on 1, 1921.
While there are several other examples in my tree, my wife’s maternal line has a significant number of tombstone typos.
The headstone for my wife’s Gx2 grandmother, Ellen Sophie Butcher Dwyer (1867 – 1952), puts her year of birth as 1866 or 1867, but the record of her marriage puts her year of birth as 1865. The 1921 census puts her birth in 1867. The headstone for Ellen’s grandmother, Agnes Pellow (1794 – 1869) erroneously states that she died in 1879.
Other apparent errors might not actually be so. For example, my wife’s Gx11 grandfather, Thomas Newman. Thomas most likely lived from about 1560 to 1649, dying at age 89. His headstone says that he was was “over eighty years old” at the time of his death. If he died at 80, Thomas would have been 15 years old when his third child, Richard, was born. However, it was more likely that Thomas was age 20 when his first child was born. While it might seem that Thomas’s headstone may have been incorrect, if Thomas died at age 89 then it was correct to say he was over 80 years old at the time of his death.
These examples underscore the importance of at least two of the elements of the Genealogical Proof Standard: the need for reasonably exhaustive research and to resolve any contradictory evidence.
A Deck of Ancestors 
Very good reminder that tombstones are “clues” not facts!
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So very true! Mistakes are made even when written in stone. I’ve had quite a few instances in my family tree as well.
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What is written on a tombstone depends on who writes it. My grandparents and 3 of their children’s remains are in the Coffs Harbour Historical Cemetery and I know what is written on the headstone is right because it matches the records. The headstone was put there by us, their family.
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