Reading & Understanding Gravestone Inscriptions

Tracing back, and learning about, the history of your family is a worthwhile thing for anyone to spend some time doing. If this is something that interests you, then there are lots of places that you can find information about your ancestors, with local archives and personal records being good examples. Another prime source of information are gravestone memorials, which can reveal a lot more than you might think that they would do.

Grave markers can be an essential piece of the genealogical jigsaw, because of their inscriptions or epitaphs. Since their introduction centuries ago, the tradition has been to record name, age and date of death. Over the years, and particularly during the Victorian era, this developed into the addition of other information, such as family links (“brother of”, “wife of” etc.) and occupations.

There is more subtle information and clues that can be ascertained too. One example is the size and quality of the gravestone, with larger and more expensive ones indicating that either the person was highly thought of and / or they were part of a wealthy family. Another example is the length of the inscription on the gravestone, which short ones indicating that either the family was poor or that the person may have been responsible for some family misdemeanor.

You will also find that some gravestones have more than just writing on them, as symbols and pictures were commonly used in the past. The image of a skull and crossbones is something that you may well come across, but there is no need to worry if you do as this simply represents death, and does not mean that the person was a criminal, or was involved in anything unpleasant. Variations on this include a skull with wings, and an angel with wings.

Other symbols to look out for, particularly on gravestones from the Victorian period, are urns, broken columns or inverted torches, all of which indicate that a life has met a premature end, a sickle, which represents the reaping of a soul, or a weeping willow tree, which symbolizes that man, like a tree, must always reach upwards towards the heavens.

Gravestones from the past 50 years or so tend to bear less information and clues, as there has been a preference for smaller versions. Creative epitaphs are gradually becoming a thing of the past and today’s inscriptions are more to the point. Beyond the name, age and dates of birth and death they are often restricted simply to “devoted wife and mother” or “now at rest”, denying the keen genealogist further important clues for their search.

Still, this need not be a big problem, and should by no means cut short your family history research, as record keeping over the past 50 years has become much more comprehensive, and so what has been lost on gravestones has been compensated for elsewhere.

At gravestones.org.uk, we understand the devastation caused by bereavement, which is why we aim to make choosing a lasting gravestone memorial an easy process.

January 27, 2010  Tags: , , , , , , ,   Posted in: Free Geneology, Geneology Search, Geneology Software, Geneology records, Geneology research, Geneology tree

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