I am trying to find out how you can read old tombstones, ones that have been weathered.?

Question

The tombstones I am trying to research are from the 1800's, early 1900's. I remember my daughter, when she was in school, went on a field trip to a cemetery and they used a certain type of paper and some kind of charcoal. the paper is taped or held and the charcoal rubbed lightly across the top of the paper. She can't remember so I am hoping for an answer here. Can you help? Thanks!

Answer 1

Check out this site.

Answer 2

Basically, use the same system. Tracing paper and charcoal or a charcoal pencil. Even a regular pencil. Rub the pencil lightly over the paper - then be sure to copy it and preserve the original. If necessary, and you have the right programs, you can enhance the inscription on your computer. It's like rubbing a pencil over the next sheet in a pad of paper to see what was written on the page above - which is now missing.

Answer 3

y not trying doing it the other way, clean the stone properly, then sprinkle some charcoal over it, till it forms a film over the words, then gently fine brush it, so only the charcoal in the grooves stays, then u can read the writing on the tombstone

Answer 4

I use to do this years ago . You get rice paper and soft charcoal . Tape the rice paper to the head stone and gently rub the long side of the charcoal on the engraving . When you get it home spray hairspray on it to set . good luck

Answer 5

Providing its a church graveyard, its worth checking to see if the church don't have a graveyard plan, with all the names of the graves on that. It depends on the church and what records it keeps, but it is worth looking for a contact number to call and ask. Some have made the effort to decipher all the tombstones themselves, especially, as now is often the case, they have had to remove some of the stones for safety reasons.

Answer 6

Grave rubbing on older decaying stones will only do them more damage. Actually grave rubbings are discouraged and some older cemeteries have banned the practice to save the stones from further damage. Older stones are often times made from limestone which is soft to begin with and with acidic rain a lot of the stones have pitted and decayed. Rubbing on that will cause more stone to crumble off. Myself I have a digital camera and I take a good close up pic and then I use my photoshop programs to clean up and wash the picture to make viewing easier. Sometimes on a digital pic it is good to change the pic to black and white and then reverse the image (make the black white and the white black). Often times that shows me what I need to know.