Sunday, September 23, 2012

Cemetery Inscriptions in Books

From Google Books Marlborough Cemetery Inscriptions, 1908

I am researching three old graveyards in Marlborough, MA. I have not been to these cemeteries at all but we have driven by one. I am looking to gather some gravestone photos for a very short cemetery presentation for next September. Fall is a great time to visit local graveyards and from the Marlborough Historical Cemetery comes a link to a book written and published by two men in 1908. It is out of copyright and is available for download as a PDF book. One man was a RICE and gives an interesting comment in the foreword about two cemeteries being claimed as the oldest in this city.


From Google Books Marlborough Cemetery Inscriptions, 1908
As an example of the way this book looks inside, I thought I'd show you an example screen shot.


From Google Books Marlborough Cemetery Inscriptions, 1908
Notice that each grave is identified by a number and the kind of symbol on the grave. Each line of the grave inscription is separated by a | (that's called a pipe, look at your keyboard to find it). Most importantly, it gives the epitaph because so many can no longer be read today. Mr. Rice obviously looked up the women's birth names when he could. What a great find, huh?

I hope to go to all three locations mentioned and take some example stones between now and next August.



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Midge, I love books like that! What wonderful dedication on the part of those authors. I'm going to save this book right now to my collection.

Celia Lewis said...

Saved! Thank you so much for posting this information - I've downloaded it and am trying not to look things up before I get a few tasks done!! So helpful to hear about another historical book still available to search.