In transcribing the markers in our local Quaker cemetery (next to the Cornwall, New York, Meeting House) and comparing them with an earlier reading (done by Gertrude Barber in the early 1920s), I realized something interesting. Barber had full dates (of birth and death) for some of the markers, but when I came upon the stones, only year dates were there. What seems to have happened is, when the surviving spouse died, the family had a new marker placed, showing both names of the couple, but with only the years of their life dates (less expensive, I am sure, than having the full dates carved).

Clearly, this means researchers should look for any earlier reading of marker inscriptions in a cemetery—not only for stones now missing, vandalized, or weather-worn, but also for stones that have been replaced!

Thanks to Roger D. Joslyn, CG, FASG for today's Quick Tip! If you have a tip you would like to share with researchers, you can send it to: editor@ancestry-inc.com.