Let’s Talk About Genealogy
Genealogy is not about guessing or making assumptions. It is all about facts. We need to do our best to get correct information. We need to ask folks about where they got their information, not just copy it and go on. Keep in mind that there are mistakes everywhere. On death certificates, gravestones, obituaries. Human error happens. We need to work to correct errors when we can.
Regarding Taking Photos of Gravestones
Of course, I want people to be able to read what is on a stone, and I intend for them to be able to if at all possible. I don’t take photos of leaning stones as if they are straight. I want the stone to look like it actually is. If you make it look straight people will assume that it is straight, whereas if they know it is leaning, they may be able to have it reset, so it does not fall over. I want to show the whole stone so people will know what kind of condition it is in. I like to show part of the cemetery as well so that family members can see whether the cemetery is taken care of or not, and the photo may help them to locate the stone when visiting the cemetery. I have gone back to cemeteries several times trying to get a good photo. Once I had to go back to photograph a stone that my car was literally right behind, when I had photographed it. I guess I was concentrating on the stone and not the background at that moment. I have a stool that I stand on to get good photos of those flat stones.
Calculating Date of Birth
There is no reason to calculate a date of birth for someone when there is a date of death and age at death on a gravestone. If someone wants to have an idea about when they were born, they can just estimate the date based on the information given. But since either the date of death or the age at death on the stone might be incorrect, then calculating the date would result in incorrect information. Back before calculators and computers, it would have been harder to calculate a precise date or age, and who knows if the person doing the figuring counted the correct number of leap days that occurred during the person’s life, or did they not think of that at all.
I figured the age at death on a death certificate one time and what I came up with did not match the age at death that was recorded on the death certificate. At the Slocum Cemetery there is a gravestone that seems to indicate that the person died first and then was born later. Human errors happen.
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