Tombstones and memorial plaques can be a hugely exciting find for any genealogist, and many cemeteries today have websites where researchers can locate burial details, headstone and memorial transcriptions and even photographs of the headstones and memorials themselves.
Finding the grave of an ancestor and obtaining a photo of the tombstone can provide an extremely varied amount of information. Some tombstones are a virtual essay of information, like the memorial plaque below for the Pike family of Gedding Mill. It not only gives names and dates of both parents but also details of all their children, including a son killed in action in WW1.
Other headstones are less helpful, with scant details and weathered, unreadable script. The grave below has no headstone as such, with the surname 'Pummeroy' simply inscribed on the border of the grave.
Sometimes one tombstone contains details of several burials, either covering a family plot or multiple burials in a single grave. The tombstone below details several burials in a family plot, including David and Jane Mulholland and three of their children who died as children : Henry aged 4 years 8 months, Margaret aged 6 years 4 months and Thomas aged 1 year 2 months.
Amongst my family photos I have a number of tombstones and memorial plaques, many of which I have obtained online from cemetery sites in areas I have not been able to visit in person. These are a huge boon for a genealogist who is mostly researching overseas with limited opportunities to travel, and it is always exciting to find another cemetery record available.
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