That's an excellent reference! Thank you for sending
it along!
One other thing. When someone sees a stone laying on
the ground our first reaction is to prop it up on
another stone with the lettering facing out. This is
actually really bad both for the stone you're propping
up and the stone it's being propped on. First, when
you prop it up on another stone you're putting stress
on the other stone, it could be forced to lean and you
could be putting stress on existing cracks that could
encourage breakage. Second, the stone that's leaning
up is now more exposed to the elements, rain slides
down it's surface causing erosion, etc.
When you find a stone laying on the ground, leave it
there, face down. This protects the stone from lawn
mowers, from rain and the elements and from further
vandalism (they're harder to pick up and move when
they are laying face down like that). If it happens to
sink below the earth, that's not necessarily a bad
thing, just provides further protection for the stone.
Just be very careful if you ever decide to go digging
around for buried stones, you don't know if they are
face up or down and you don't want to scratch the face
of a stone (think archealogical dig!)
Cemeteries provide a wealth of information, they are
so vitally important. Just a few weeks ago I found a
cemetery with stones from the 1830's that gave the
exact time of death for these people, some with little
bio's on them. Very interesting!
Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2004 18:46:50 -0700 (PDT)
From: Cindy Kimes <cindykimes(a)yahoo.com>
To: INCASS-L(a)rootsweb.com
Subject: Reading that old tombstone
Did you know that gravestone rubbing can harm the
tombstone?
Read Maureen Taylor's tips on a safe alternative.
http://www.Genealogy.com/64_gravestones.html
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