Hitchin Old Cemetery Inscription Errors

[Past Family]

Inscriptions on Tombstones can be a great source of information, but care must be taken where ancestors have added a new commemorative stone.

One glaring example is the one for William Maylin.
It reads"This stone was laid by the descendants of Hitchin Centenarian William Maylin/born 3rd August 1803/baptised 29th November 1808/died 24th October 1905........

This shows little research was carried out before this was inscribed and placed on the spot. There is good documentary evidence to prove that William Maylin died before he was a hundred and that both the birth date and baptismal dates are wrong.

I strongly recommend that is you find new inscriptions in a church yard careful research must be carried out to prove the statements on them.

This particular one will probably give dozens of people false information over the years and there must be many like it in different areas.

[Plummiegirl]

That does make you wonder if the people who had this new stone laid actually had the right ancestor?

Surely the cemetery records would have been checked before this glaringly incorrect stone was allowed to be erected?  How awful.

[Past Family]

Further more it is not possible to find out who paid for the Headstone as the Monumental Stonemasons are not at liberty to tell me so the error will be there until the stone disintegrates. As I said before do thorough research on things you see on new headstones.

[Nick29]

Of course, the problem is that Death Certificates are also well known to contain 'errors', especially when the person reporting the death was not a close relative. Even when it was, people often lied about their age to their spouses, out of vanity.  Death information is the least reliable of them all.

[Jeuel]

Although "cast in stone" information on gravestones is just as likely to be wrong as information in parish registers, on certificates or censuses.