The tinfoil method is new to me. I have read many eroded inscriptions using a shadowbox, as advocated in one of the books on Monumental Inscriptions (possibly the one by John Rayment). A shadowbox can be made by cutting a cardboard postal tube to a length of about twelve inches. One end is cut square, and the other is cut at a slight angle. Each letter on the stone is viewed through the tube, holding the angled end close to the stone. Light shining sideways around the edges of the tube casts shadows on the letter, making it easier to read. Alan McGowan Hampshire/IOW Family History Site http://website.lineone.net/~hantshistory ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Collyer" <dcollyer@giant.net.au> To: <ISLE-OF-WIGHT-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2004 4:47 PM Subject: [IoW] Tombstones - great tip Dear Friends and Cousins, I have copied the item below from another list because it certainly seemed appropriate for a vast number of tombstones on the IOW. David in Ballarat Tinfoil Tombstone Impression I was recently asked to visit a local cemetery in the Indianapolis area to take a picture of a tombstone. There was some doubt about the date of death inscribed on the tombstone, as one transcription of it gave a different date from that which a family genealogy cited. I was able to find the tombstone and take a picture of it, but I still could not read the date of death, no matter how I varied the angle of the photograph or the lighting of the tombstone. The inscription was too worn and rough to do a rubbing. Not wanting to apply anything that might have chemical agents such as shaving cream, I tried to think of a "dry method" and the thought of taking tin foil came to me. I took a sheet and gently pressed the foil into the inscription with a dry, soft sponge, then gently lifted the foil from the stone, and I had an impression of the inscription that I could then take and hold in front of a mirror to read. I can't say I'd ever heard of this having been done before, but now tinfoil and a sponge are two items I carry whenever I go "cemetery hopping," along with a whisk broom, probe, and flashlight.