Jump to content

Category Proposal: 100 Year Old Headstones


Recommended Posts

Pretty-much self-explanatory. Any headstone or other grave marker that has a date-of-death that is 100 years or more before the date that the grave was found. Details such as name of the deceased, name of cemetary (if possible; not all cemetaries have names) and city/county/country location would be required. Exceptions would be accepted on the name if the marker is very worn, but the date is readable, as well as for "unknown person" markers, although that info would be substituted. A photo would also be required, but of the marker, not your GPSr. There are too many GPSr photos already ;)

Link to comment

Hmmm... OK, there are some valid comments here, and I have to admit that I was being too parochial. I do live in California, and 100-year-old headstones are still something of a rarity, although getting commoner.

 

I suppose that I could limit this to certain areas, such as the Western US and Western Canada. The idea that FtMgAl gave isn't bad, but it would need work; in most of Eastern Europe, any tomb that's more than 15 years old would qualify, whereas almost none in the US would. But it gives us something to work with. I'll think on this some more.

 

On the other hand, not all of these things have to be challenging. The challenge for this one would be more in finding one worth taking pictures of. Not every old grave is interesting.

Link to comment

The idea that the headstone had to be older than the current government has some merit. You could make the category "pioneer" headstones. In Indiana, the Pioneer society has a list of dates that qualifies a person as being a pioneer. In Clark county (which was settled early) the person had to have been there before 1816, but in the northern part of the sate, some folks are considered pioneers if they were there before 1860.

That way, the person would have to learn a little about the history of the area (establishment of county, state, parish, etc) and find a qualifiying headstone. It could work.

Link to comment

Pioneer headstones is an intriguing idea. The issue with using sliding dates is that 100 years ago today is different than 100 years ago tomorrow. As categories really shouldn't be only regional (with exception to the manufacturer) categories shouldn't have a sliding time. However, dates between x and y or during a certain period of history makes it a snapshot in time.

 

Who knows? This database may exist 1000 years from now.

Link to comment

This discussion shows that there is bound to be cultural bias in the voting - a US ancient monument may be a european "two-a-penny" item - that is no criticism - we don't have many Grand Canyon type things here in Europe! So cultural bias is a serious factror when it comes to voting.

 

But on the theme of grave markers - how about these as less common categories that might still be found worldwide:

 

- graves of people who LIVED to be over 100 years

 

- really out of the ordinary headstones. For example we have one round here that was made in 1920 (almost 100 years ago!!) in the shape of a flying motor cycle wheel. It is one of my regular cache sites, but certainly has a WOW factor for cachers who visit it. There are also weird messages on headstones. These would certainly be an interesting category to me!

 

:mad:

Link to comment

I liked the 'pioneer' headstone or before the establishment of the [state/province/country] government ideas.

 

I think there is a category established for those who were soldiers in the Revolutionary War (approx. 200 years or more). Another one could be established for Civil War soldiers (approx. 100 years or more).

 

Oldest headstone in a cemetery came to mind, too, though that would take some research.

 

I really like the idea of unusual headstones - I know of a place that has a lot of them!

Edited by NorStar
Link to comment
This may be a bit odd, but how about headstones showing people who expired EXACTLY 100 years, to the day, from your find date?

This makes it much more challanging. Great idea. I would slightly expand that to be any 100 year multiple 200, 300 etc. Only additional point is that there a many, many that have year and month of death listed.

 

My vote for century/ millennium headstones.

Link to comment
×
×
  • Create New...