"Marti Ford" <mford@moscow.com> wrote: > According to the published sources, X was the 3rd of 4 sons born to > Y & Z, after a string of girls all living. All three sons other > than X die before the age of 5. When the last of these sons dies, X > was 2 years old. > I have tombstone inscriptions of all three other sons. They agree > with the published birth/death dates. However, on the 4th son's > tombstone, he is identified as "the third son of Y&Z". (The first > two tombstones just say "son of ...") How old was X when he died? Were others of his generation still alive? With the other sons having died so young, if the info for his Memorial was given by children or grandchildren, then it's easy to see how one child could be missed out. > How much weight should I give this seeming descrepancy? Could the > tombstone possibly be interpreted as "the third son of Y&Z to > die"? What that sort of "ordering" ever a custom to anyone's > knowledge? I am new at this, and I would greatly appreciate any > help from more experienced hands. I think that it would be a good idea to try an verify all the info you have found, not just that on the (notoriously unreliable) memorials. As an illustration of why it's dangerous to rely on previously published material, I offer the description of a book extracted from the catalogue of one of my favourite booksellers, Benny Gillies http://www.bennygillies.co.uk/ "KNOWLES, GEORGE PARKER A GENEALOGICAL AND HERALDIC ACCOUNT OF THE COULTHARTS OF COULTHART AND COLLYN. TO WHICH ARE ADDED THE PEDIGREE OF SEVEN OTHER CONSIDERABLE FAMILIES ETC. WITH A GENEALOGICAL ACCOUNT OF THE ROSSES OF DALTON IN THE COUNTY OF DUMFRIES. Printed for private circulation, London 1855. frontis coat of arms, plus other arms in text, large folding pedigree, the whole work printed on vellum, one of 75 copies printed. (An elaborate and expensive hoax: The seven other considerable families never existed. The man who had it published was of uncertain origin. The man who is believed to have been his grandfather was a half witted small farmer known locally in Kells as 'Laird Cowtart'. The place and castle of Coulthart never existed and the arms were borrowed from the Essex family of Colt and others.[See The Ancestor vol iv pps 61-80, Jan 1903]. " Your published sources are a good start, but it wouldn't hurt to check and see how reliable the authors were! Lesley Robertson Lesley Robertson <l.a.robertson@tnw.tudelft.nl>

> <good discussion snipped> > > Your published sources are a good start, but it wouldn't hurt to > check and see how reliable the authors were! > > Lesley Robertson <l.a.robertson@tnw.tudelft.nl> You can't believe it even if it is engraved in stone! I have a case where three children in one family died within a few days of one another. Many things on the gravestones were wrong. The stones read as follows: "Allen Warnock b. May 5 1856, d. 1862 son of Emma and McClellan, twin of Nannie" (McClellan was Allen's brother, not his father) "Nannie Warnock, b. May 5 1856, d. 1862, dau. of Emma and William, twin of Allen" "McClellan Warnock, b. Oct 28 1861, d. 1862, son of Emma and William" Actually, there were no twins; Allen was b. May 4 1856 Nannie (Nancy Ann) was b. May 27 1858 McClellan was b. Oct 28 1861 (this was the only one that was correct) There was an epidemic that year in which many children died. We speculate that either the man who inscribed the gravestones was so overwhelmed by the task he just made some errors, or that the parents, grief stricken by this multiple loss, let someone else supply the information (or a combination of the two). Virginia "Virginia Beck" <ginia2@san.rr.com>