While it is true that you may be able to fill in the branches of your family tree by relying on simple records like birth certificates, marriage certificates, and death certificates, many genealogists do not want to stop there. The wonderful thing about genealogical research is that you can dig deeper than that. There are many kinds of documents and other types of evidence that genealogists can look at if what they seek is a more complete picture of who their ancestors were. The gravestones of our ancestors contain words and symbols that can give us some insight to the lives that they led.
Sometimes, the epitaph on a gravestone is just so amusing that when you read it, you will wonder whether the inhabitant of the tomb wrote it prior to their death or whether someone in their family had interesting things to say about the departed. I dug up some funny epitaphs from graves in New England that I think you will enjoy:
A tombstone in Stowe, Vermont reads, “I was somebody. Who, is no business of yours.”
Anna Hopewell’s grave in Enosburg Falls, Vermont says, “Here lies the body of our Anna. Done to death by a banana. It wasn’t the fruit that laid her low, but the skin of the thing that made her go.” I really do wonder whether Anna died from slipping on a banana peel or if someone in her family was having fun when they wrote her epitaph.
Jonathan Pease is buried on the island of Nantucket, in Massachusetts. His tombstone reads,” Under the sod and under the trees lies the body of Jonathan Pease. He’s not here, there’s only the pod. Pease shelled out and went to God.”
Thankful Fairbank, of Worcester, Massachusetts does not have a funny epitaph, but she must have been a good homemaker. Her tombstone reads, “She looked well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.”
Andrew Wilder’s tombstone in an old burial ground in Worcester, Massachusetts reminds us that some day we, too, shall pass. His epitaph reads, “Death is a debt to nature due, which I have paid and so must you.”
Does anyone in your family have an interesting epitaph on their tombstone?