We would like to thank “A Billion Graves” for this wonderful information about Gravestone Symbols.
Learning to Read a Cemetery
Do you remember when you learned to read? As a child, it was fun to look at pictures in books as someone older read the words. But, oh, that magical moment when you realized you could read the words yourself! It opened a whole new world!
Would you like to learn to “read” a cemetery? It’s genealogical adventure!
On many older gravestones, there are pictures and symbols that tell stories about your loved ones and ancestors. If you can’t “read” gravestone-language” you are missing part of the story.
The first time I walked through a cemetery after learning about cemetery symbols was incredible. It was like someone was walking along beside me, introducing me to each person. “Samuel Hanover died at sea.” “Mary Smith passed away suddenly as an infant.” “John and Hannah hope to be together eternally.”
In the End, Symbols are Still Just Symbols
The Webster Dictionary definition of symbols is “something that stands for or suggests something else by reason of relationship, association, convention, or accidental resemblance.” The key word in that definition is “suggests.” In the end, a symbol is still a symbol. It represents whatever the person who designed it meant it to be, even though someone else may interpret it differently.
Since we cannot speak to the people who commissioned the symbol on the stone or those who carved it, interpretations should always be considered possibilities, not certainties. That said, there are particular symbols that have come to have commonly accepted meanings through their repeated use.