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.

David Collyer, EXCELLENT suggestion. I have filed that away for my summer cemetery hopping! Heather in Mission, BC Canada 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.