HelPeR - BYU Idaho Special Collections and Family History

Left: Thistle Flower—Emblem of Scotland. This
shows ethnic identity. This person was born in
Scotland.
Above: This stone shows the use of the word Consort.
It also is an example of a gravestone listing the
disease from which she died.
for those that commissioned the stone. The stone
carver used icons as a type of shorthand. Most carvers
charged by the letter and anything that helped
lessen the labor or expense of the project was welcomed.
Millions of words have been written about
the Christian religion. Not even a fraction of them
could be carved on the average gravestone. The Western
Cross, a widely recognized cultural symbol for
Christianity, was placed on the stone representing
the idea behind all those words.
The person whose grave the stone was to adorn
sometimes selected these icons in advance of death.
Usually, however, the surviving family chose them.
These carved icons or statuary, taken with epitaphs,
scripture, and other carvings, can often provide insight
into the nature of the person and his or her
family. The use of all this information is a genealogy
field and research tool called Cemetery Iconology.
Your ancestor’s gravestone, its size, shape, and
even composition can often give you an insight into
the culture in which your ancestor lived. Gravestones
can yield information about ethnic identity, religious
beliefs, and social organizations to which they may
have belonged. You can find information about relationships.
If you are searching for a female ancestor
before the mid-1700s, a gravestone may be the only
place you will ever find her name recorded. Gravestones
often provide information about more than
one ancestor, saving invaluable time on the part of
the researcher. Gravestones often list information
about your ancestor’s occupation, military service
and even diseases and epidemics from which they
may have died.
Gravestone symbols or icons can give much information,
but it is not as easy as looking at a picture
and comparing it to your ancestor’s gravestone. Cemetery
Iconology encompasses portions of the fields
of Botany, Geology, History, and Sociology. We must
consider the history, language and geography in the
study of gravestone symbols. A symbol used and
recognized in one place may mean something different
in another locality. We cannot attempt to read,
analyze, and define gravestone icons through 21st
century thinking and understanding. Medical terms
have changed. Language and references to occupations
may be quite different than what is understood
The terms cemeteries and graveyards are used interchangeably, but there
is a difference. Graveyards are burial places that have a connection to a
church. Cemeteries are burial places that have no such connection.
Ja n ua ry/Fe b r u a r y 2009 Ev e r t o n’s Ge n e a l o g i c a l He l p e r © 17