Tombstone Tuesday AND Tuesday’s Tip – Two Posts in One!

First, for Tombstone Tuesday, I am posting pictures of the front and back of the tombstone memorializing my parents, Jasper Jackson and Beaulah Belle (Yawman) Spurlock, located in Lone Grove Cemetery, Lone Grove, Carter County, Oklahoma.

Now for Tuesday’s Tip: Don’t accept what you find engraved on a tombstone as your only proof for a genealogical fact. You could be lead astray!

My father is the only person buried in the grave pictured above. My mother died in Bakersfield, Kern County, California; at her request, her body was donated to the University of Southern California for medical research purposes. My siblings and I chose to have a new marker made for my dad’s grave to remember my mom as well.

You might surmise from the listing on the back of the marker that my parents had six children, but they did not. Jane was my father’s daughter from his first marriage to Mattie Lee McBride. Deanna, Arny and Tony are my mother’s children from her first marriage to Archie Sherrell. Jenny and I are the only two children born of my parents’ union.

Perhaps you know of a unintentionally deceptive tombstone in your own family. If you do, make a record of it so that future descendants will not be mislead.

© 2011 Denise Spurlock