Gravestone inscriptions

[Airdriehunter]

I have found some ancesters burried in St. josephs cemetary Airdrie. They were married, but on the headstone it inscribes her maiden name. Is this usual on gravestones in Scotland? Regards

[Skoosh]

Women in Scotland traditionally kept their own names!

Skoosh.

[Airdriehunter]

Thats interesting, thanks

[Skoosh]

Quite popular nowadays AH, many lassies opt to keep their names. It was an English fashion anyhow.


Skoosh.

[Forfarian]

Quite popular nowadays AH, many lassies opt to keep their names. It was an English fashion anyhow.

Just for clarification, the English fashion was changing your surname on marriage. It wasn't traditional in Scotland, which is why you get mothers' maiden surnames in baptism records and married women's maiden surnames on gravestones and in legal documents.

[mosstrooper]

Just a little addendum to this thread, where I came from (Whiterigg, Plains etc) it was the man who lost his name on marriage, I was no longer James Kerr, on marriage I became Mary Henderson's man.

[Rosinish]

  Mosstrooper!

Another 'addendum'...many women were recorded by their m/s on census' too & often reverted back to their m/s when widowed.

Annie