Finding Transcribed Gravestones on Your Genealogy Journey

Find It At the Library

In some areas, historical or genealogical societies have transcribed gravestones for all the readable information from all the cemetery monuments in a graveyard. This is sometimes called 'reading a cemetery'.

If you are very lucky, a location you need, which no longer exists, was read previously, and you can get a copy of the booklet. Check the local resources in the area your ancestor is buried to find out if such booklets exist.

Even if the local graveyard still exists, many of the old grave headstones may be cracked, worn, eroded, or broken, and the inscriptions on them have become illegible. Again, the locally recorded gravestones publication may be the only information available to you.

In the old days the graveyards were tended and mowed by hand. Now most are mowed with big tractor machines which tend to hit the cemetery monuments. Once a stone has been cracked, water can get into it, and it begins to disintegrate. When a stone gets broken, most often the broken piece is removed to some trash pile somewhere, and its contents are gone forever.

Check the internet for genealogical societies, local historical associations, or just helpful family tree searchers who may have transcribed the cemetery stones in a cemetery you are searching for.

If you find yourself in need of finding the gravestone information for an ancestor and the stone no longer exists or is unreadable, remember that -

Sometimes Gravestone Hunting is in the Local Library!