In a message dated 97-10-16 08:00:05 EDT, janiceaf@ix.netcom.com writes: > My question is, does > anyone know why so often on these old stones it gives the date of birth > and then instead of the date of death, "at the age of nn years, nn > months, and nn days." Janice, I really don't have a proper answer to that one but I would (only partly in jest) say it was done to give genealogists a hard time figuring it out later on. One comment I do have on it is this--many people then, just as now, had a difficult time figuring out the exact number of days, months, and years, and some of those inscriptions were wrong. In many cases they are a day off--but one in my own family was off by many years. We never could figure out how that happened until someone found the person who had the family Bible. In pencil, written in the inside cover, was the calculation done to arrive at the dates. The person had subtracted wrong by about 20 years!!!! The individual was in his 60s when he died and the tombstone said he was age 41 and so many months and years. Joan Myers Young ==== PENNA-DUTCH Mailing List ==== Forgot how to SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE? Send the appropriate one word message to PENNA-DUTCH-L-REQUEST@ROOTSWEB.COM