Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Analysis of Numerals



Yesterday, I spent a long time gathering resources to hlep me read one numeral on this gravestone. The photo that I took in 2004 seems to show me that the date is 1823. The deep lettering in the 8 doesn't match to be an 8 in and not a 3. One of my books demontrates the weathering of italic lettering on marble gravestones and although this is not marble, it shows that the gravestone carver dug deeper in that area of the number and that's the one that lasts.

The gravestone photo that Brian Zoldak took is of higher resolution and the last numeral in the year is not clearer in fact it makes the last numeral even less like an eight.

There are no vital records for this child buried here. That's not unusual in itself but it doesn't help. So I began this chart. I used RootsMagic 5's Date Calculator to work with the 6 years, 4 months and 11 days that seems clearly stated.

The problem is NOT resolved because Little Harriet had a brother who was supposedly born 31 March 1816. I know that the Stewart Clan magazine's footnote indicates that the death date for Harriet given there was taken from the gravestone.  Since both Wheeler and Stewart Clan magazine probably got the data from the Hale collection of cemetery records gathered in the 1930s, it still doesn't line up.




6 Yrs, 4 mo. 11 ds.
Died
Born
Calculated Birth
1
Cemetery Transcription
20 Apr 1823
Not stated
9 Dec 1816
2
Wheeler's History
25 Apr 1828
9 Dec 1821
14 Dec 1821
3
Stewart Clan Magazine
20 Apr 1828
19 Dec 1821
20 Dec 1821

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Midge, For what it's worth, I vote go with Wheeler's. Just my opinion. Hard when dates are confusing between published records, and stone. Glad you posted this and did the chart.