RootsChat.Com

This topic came up a few years ago, but might benefit from a re-visit.

As we know, the late Christine Stokes and the late Angi Lamb photographed and transcribed the burial records of cemeteries all across Sutherland a decade or so ago. Following their respective deaths the website containing the pictures and transcripts was taken down a couple of years ago.

On a recent visit to Balnakeil I met some biology students who are using the graves for research into lichen activity on stone. The combination of lichen and further weathering has made some of the gravestones that were legible a decade ago nearly impossible to read; in another twenty years many of the horizontal sandstone markers will be utterly illegible. Re-doing the work completed before will perhaps salvage 90-95% of the old data now, but each year will see more inscriptions lost forever. My great-grandfather's stone for one is deteriorating rapidly and might survive twenty years at best

Is anyone here in touch with the families of the two ladies and able to access the old pictures and transcripts for re-posting?   

Questions here for us all to scratch our heads over

I wonder if anyone knows anything of this gentleman, a very distant cousin. His father was Gustave Labiche (b. circa 1886), a hotel waiter and his mother was Elizabeth Swanson, a ladies' companion. When they married in 1914 their address was given as 235 Berkeley Street, Glasgow.

Did they stay in Glasgow or perhaps return to France after WW1?

Last week I visited a relative of my mother's whose husband of 55 years died unexpectedly after a short illness recently. as they had no children it fell to her to register his death the day afterwards.

She was of course aware of his full name, date of birth, datre of marriage and parents' names, but was then nonplussed to be asked if she knew where his mother and father were born and what their occupations were. When she asked why this was required she was told that it would help researchers in the future identify the right people. She found this rather unnecessary and upsetting enough for her to raise it with me some weeks later.

While I'm sure everybody here is of the view that the more information a researcher has the better their research outcome will be, is it really appropriate to seek this information from widows and widowers or other relatives at the time of registering a death?