Deciphering Illegible Inscriptions on Headstones - could modern technology help?

[Keith Sherwood]

Dollylee,
Sorry, I forgot about the necessity to have those angels on (peering over?) my shoulders...
Nick, and it sounds as though you're the nearest thing to applying modern technology to this problem!
Regards, keith

[Emjaybee]

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,309035.0.html

If you have a look at this link you will see the saga. I did not do the final repair on this tombstone.

All credit is to Paulatoo.

[modem]

For me the exciting technology advance is the technique developed by the Church of the LDS to read very old documents like the Dead Sea Scrolls. I saw somewhere about their recovery of writing from apparently blank and badly smudged roman manuscripts, unfortunately I can't recall where.

What I keep hoping to hear is that they have used the technology to read all the copies of unreadable/damp-damaged parish records they hold and that they are now available for us to use. Unfortunately I suspect that they will be too busy on their current digitisation project to tackle them sometime soon.

[joboy]

Very interesting topic indeed.
My wife's ancestor who was transported to Oz in 1834 did well after his TOL and was a respected blacksmith in the Parramatta area.
He was buried in All Saints burial ground and a respectable sandstone tombstone erected and added to as other members of the family were buried.
The sandstone was soft (like much of local sandstone) and erosion had made 90% of it unreadable.
Then,after a while, I read a paper about 'low angle viewing for defects in building surfaces' (important to my vocation) b]so I thought about the tombstone and found that my attempts to read it in the past had been usually late in the day as the sun was going down (the tombstone faced east).
So I tried looking at it around midday when the sun was at a low angle and 'bingo' I could read every name and date.
The details have now been safely recorded.
joboy

[little meg]

So I tried looking at it around midday when the sun was at a low angle and 'bingo' I could read every name and date.
The details have now been safely recorded.
joboy

Thats great joboy, but I am a little confused.  If it is midday how can the sun be at a low angle 

Would love to use this method on future graveyard expeditions 

Margaret

[joboy]

Well Margaret .. if you shon a torch directly on to the surface (as you normally would) you would see little .. but if you laid the torch full length (ie handle as well) on the face of the surface you would see any impression or defect that was there.
You can try this out by selecting perhaps a painted wall in your home and seeing the number of imperfections there ... on what you thought may have been a very smooth surface.
Joe

[little meg]

Thanks joboy, I get it 

but I won't do your suggested experiment cause then OH might see what a lousy job I did on the plastering and painting 

Margaret

[joboy]

I have no doubts about it!!  .. so try it and you will be shocked.
Joe

[Nick29]

Well Margaret .. if you shon a torch directly on to the surface (as you normally would) you would see little .. but if you laid the torch full length (ie handle as well) on the face of the surface you would see any impression or defect that was there.
You can try this out by selecting perhaps a painted wall in your home and seeing the number of imperfections there ... on what you thought may have been a very smooth surface.
Joe

The lower story of my 100 year old house is constructed from very soft red brick, and when the sun is at a certain angle in the late afternoon, you can read every piece of graffiti that has been scratched into it in the last 100 years