A few years ago, I visited the center and hill cemeteries in Blandford, Massachusetts (one of the early New England Scotch-Irish towns). Many of the tombstones there list the women under their maiden names. For example, "John Hamilton 1755 - 1846 His Wife Ruth Ferguson 1763 - 1848". I was told that it was customary for a woman to use her own family name until her husband died. Then she became "the Widow [husband's last name]". Was this a Scotch-Irish custom, or peculiar to Blandford? I've never noticed it in an English cemetery. Joyce Hamilton