Cemetery headstone reading challenge

Question

I've been photographing the headstones at the Soldiers' Home section of our local cemetery, but some are really hard to decipher. Have a knack for reading worn headstones or just like a challenge? I'd be so grateful for any help - even a random guess! Feel free to comment on the photos or right here. Thank you so much!

https://photos.app.goo.gl/UX9Arin2xmLUmwqZ7

Comments

The first one looks like either D. C. J???ESS or O.C. J???ESS.  Some surnames that would work (from FamilySearch.org, using wildcards for the uncertain letters): JENESS; JAQUESS; JOHNESS, JUSTESS, JARVESS

Can you tell us anything more about the location or possible dates for these headstones?

Reba

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When I was in school in England, they had us do a project on very old cemeteries, which were abundant.

Most headstones were practically unreadable.  We took to using large pieces of paper which we laid over the headstone while we rubbed charcoal across the entire paper. We were able to read on the paper much clearer what the headstone read, than with just our eyes on the headstone itself. A wonderful learning experience I shall never forget and probably what started my interest in genealogy.

Answer 1

The top inscription might end with ESS and the bottom one with SSINE.

Answer 2

Is it just the moss in the stones or are the stones deteriorating that much?

Answer 3

Some are US NAVY  - many are Co. X   xth MASS. INF.  or MASS. CA. but you probably knew that!

Answer 4

What I've done has been to pull the images into a photo editor and play with color and contrast and posterizing until things become clearer.  It's allowed me to read at least one age-at-death from a Findagrave image, which gave me a birthdate I don't have from anywhere else.  (I use Gimp, but it's not the easiest to learn. However, it's opensource, so free.)

For military graves like these, though, I'd look for a plot map and index and records for the graveyard.  Who administers it?  Who mows it?  Is there an office you could just walk into?  Or records for this graveyard that you could access online?

Comments

I tried a few in photoshop, changed the levels but I wasn't able to sort any.

Answer 5

Wow, these are hard.  I tried a few and now I have a headache!  Good luck.

Answer 6

Have you tried doing a rubbing of any of them? It's time and material intensive (paper), but it sometimes works when nothing else does. If you have some darker colored chalk or pastel, they tend to work the best for me. Also, lighter paper like wrapping tissue or anything lighter than 20lb. copy paper works better.

Answer 7

Does the cemetery have a burial record that you can have access to? Or has a local genealogy/historical society completed a transcript? Sometimes, that gives you an idea of possible matches. You can also go at different times of day and take pictures at different angles to try to get the sun or shadows highlight missing words/letters. Or, as mentioned above, do a quick rubbing of the stone.

I have also taken the photo into a photo editor and inverted the image colors. Sometimes this helps as well.

Good luck!

Answer 8

Your request for help from 2018 was included in yesterday’s G2G email. Have you been able to read the names on all the stones? I use the photo editing online to read old stones if you want help. Where do I put the headstone information?

Answer 9

The first photo seems to be D. C. James, CO. C. Across the bottom, the number of the company is not legible, only the "T" and Mass. Inf. is legible.  I can see an extra "s" at the end of the last name.  I finally made out the "a" and "m", but i could not find any last name starting with a "J" that had two "s" at the end.  They curve down and are not in line with the other part of the name.  Could be that there is a missing letter after the last "S" and it may be that it could be an "r" and that he was a Sr.  If anyone can come up with a better explanation, I have no problem with a correction.  

Comments

Wanted to offer my help in reading the last line. Most times that’s the easiest. If you want any help let me know. Also I read this headstone and posted to Find-A-Grave. Glad you are working on this also.

Answer 10

THE 18TH WHITE MONUMENT IS L. V. THOMPSON, CO. K, 17TH MASS. INF.

Answer 11

Their are 24 photos in this group. I finished and posted information on Find-A-Grave about 2 weeks ago for #1 who is O.C. Jenness (Oliver) and #15 who is B.C. Atkinson (Benjamin) and he was in H.A., heavy artillery. With your finishing #18 of L.V. Thompson we only have 21 left. Perhaps we could work together and finish this project fast?

Answer 12

I believe most of those would be perfectly readable with the right photographic technique: off-camera flash.