Two graves, Same people???

OU812

I was passing Glasnevin cemetery today & decided to pop in to see if I could find my Grandfather's grave. He died in 1968 and I'd never found it. Popped into the office & they gave me the plot number & after about 30 minutes wandering, finally came across it.

I was taking it all in when I noticed his brother & sister in law were in the grave two over. Excellent. Bonus find. Took a look at their grave & then noticed our surname on the back of a small headstone on the next row over.

Unfortunately the front of the headstone has weathered considerably & is almost unreadable. What I could make out, was the brother's name & the wife name that are supposedly in the grave two away from my grandfather's. I can't make out the date of death of either.

I've just done a search on glasnevintrust.ie & there's only one plot coming up for him.

Short of a horribly dismembering accident... Any ideas?

OU812

This is the "rogue" headstone. Can anyone read the dates?

KildareFan

Can't really help with deciphering the dates - but it does bring to mind the poor carving on Irish headstones which seem to become illegible after a relatively short time. I was ancestor hunting in a number of cemeteries in the US & Canada in the last few weeks and the inscriptions on headstones dating back to the early 1800s were perfectly legible. The lettering was more deeply incised than appears to be the case on Irish headstones. They also seem to favour carving out the background, leaving the letters in relief which also helps to preserve legibility.

mickmackey1

Doesn't it say 'Their son Bernard' on the rogue headstone? Presumably your granduncle and wife didn't also have a son Bernard so that might give you a clue.

OU812

mickmackey1 wrote: »

Doesn't it say 'Their son Bernard' on the rogue headstone? Presumably your granduncle and wife didn't also have a son Bernard so that might give you a clue.

Yes, they did have one & he's listed on the other stone also ?!?

mickmackey1

:eek: well it looks like some of your distant ancestors were namesakes of a more recent generation, quite a coincidence but possible I suppose...

OU812

I'm baffled. I'm after emailing Glasnevin to see if they have any idea. I need to find out the grave number of the "Rogue" one (all parties (& some others) are listed in the newer grave, but I can't find a listing for the other plot.

mickmackey1

Do any outwardly similar headstones beside the Rogue have legible dates? That might give some idea of the time period we're talking about.

Alan30

Looks like died 26/6/36 to me
Their son Bernard died 5/3/47

P. Breathnach

My first supposition is that the stone relates to your family and that it was mistakenly erected on the wrong grave.

tabbey

P. Breathnach wrote: »

My first supposition is that the stone relates to your family and that it was mistakenly erected on the wrong grave.

This also occurred to me.
Another possibility is that some relative mentioned various ancestors as well as the ones who were in that grave, not realising that they were already commemorated on another stone.

Lots of people commemorate additional relatives, who are not in the grave.

One of my ancestral graves has a stone naming three people, as if all were in the grave, but in fact only one person is in the grave. I know this from the Glasnevin record, and have found one of the others in Cashel, and believe the third is in France.

OU812

I emailed in photos of the front & back of the headstones & I was talking to them today & they're very kindly going to investigate by looking up the plot number, rather than the names. Apparently someone will go down in the next week or so, get a rubbing of the headstone to try to capture the details & will then look up the plot on their database & also the original book of that row. So I *may* get to the bottom of it yet. They were just as baffled as I was.

pinkypinky

I'm surprised to hear they'd make a rubbing of the stone, which is nowadays considering damaging.

OU812 - if you can flip your photo into negative, that might bring up the letters more clearly.

OU812

Fantastic service from the Glasnevin trust.

That got back to me this morning to say someon had visited the plot and apparently it's empty. The rogue stone is the original stone from the 30s which was removed in 1998 when another family member was buried.

The stone was placed where it is now out of the way & over time has "bedded in" on an empty plot.

I'm going to see if it can be repurposed as the family name is on the back of it and my grandfather's headstone broke and was removed years ago. Although he was gone before my father knew him (so there's no sentiment there), it might be nice to have the other names ground off the back and his name & dates put on the reverse & place it as his stone.