Talking Tombstones

In our February 15 Genealogy Blog post, The Never Ending Quest, we told you how we found the names of our great-great grandparents. We wanted to confirm this information through a different source. We found that our great grandfather's tombstone had our answers. Many Jewish tombstones tell you a lot of useful genealogical information about your ancestors. There are many symbols and inscriptions that can tell you gender, what the person did for a living, Jewish Tribal affiliation, information about their spouse or children, and exact dates and location of birth and death. One of the most important and useful inscriptions is the lineage inscription. Most tombstones, that have Hebrew inscriptions, will include the deceased person's father's Hebrew name and sometimes includes earlier generations along the male line. Since we had our great grandfather's death certificate with all of the "don't knows" on it, we knew where he was buried. Using that information, we were able to get a photograph of his tombstone. Luckily the stone was in good condition and had a Hebrew inscription. His father's name in Hebrew was on the stone and confirmed the information from his sister's SS-5 Social Security Application. Now we also had his Hebrew name. This information could be useful in the future if we ever find European records for the family.

Jacobson and Jacobson Genealogy Researchers http://www.bocafengshui.com/genealogy.html specializing in Jewish Genealogy.