Frequently Asked Questions
Why can't I find the person I'm looking for, when I know he/she was buried in this cemetery?
Some possible reasons: The marker has been overgrown with sod; the marker has deteriorated; the grave was never marked. This index lists only visible markers, including some (marked NF for “not found”) that were visible on some previous visit, but not on the latest one. Also try different spellings. A woman who remarried may be buried beside her first husband, under his surname.
Why are some rows copied east to west, and others, nearby, west to east?
It saves walking. Usually alternate rows are copied in the opposite direction; e.g. row 1 east to west, row 2 west to east, row 3 east to west, etc. Sometimes the cemetery layout makes this impracticable.
What is a cenotaph?
A cenotaph is a monument erected in memory of a person whose remains lie elsewhere.
Some names are listed twice. How can a person be buried in two different places?
Obviously, they can't. What often happens is that parents will have the name of a deceased child or grandchild inscribed on their headstone, though the child is buried elsewhere. This is an example of a cenotaph. A surviving spouse may have his/her name carved on a joint tombstone and later decide to be buried elsewhere, as with a new spouse.
Why is some information in [brackets]?
This is information supplied from other sources (chiefly obituaries) that doesn't actually appear on the grave markers. (Dates in the indexes omit brackets.)
Note: Dates of birth as given in obituaries are notoriously unreliable. In many cases the month and day agree with the headstones but the year does not. The obituary information included in brackets should be verified if possible. (Note also that headstones are not always accurate, either.)
A common discrepancy is that the stone will give only a year of birth (and death), say “1877”, but the obituary will give the date of birth as “August 7, 1879.” The “August 7” part is probably correct and so will be added in brackets, but the year of birth remains uncertain. Since this is a cemetery index, information on gravestones is always recorded as carved and thus the index would show “[7 Aug] 1877” in this case.
In several cases the incorrect year of death has also been carved. (Someone who died in 1927 would not have an obituary published in 1926!) Again, gravestone information is recorded as carved, but a note will be shown in such a case with the correct information if known.
Unfortunately, these are common problems in genealogical research.
What does the age format X/Y/Z mean?
Ages given in the format X/Y/Z represent X years, Y months, and Z days. Older gravestones often gave a person's vital statistics by stating, for example, “Died on June 14, 1888 at the age of 72 years, 4 months and 29 days,” leaving a small arithmetic problem for someone wishing to know the date of birth. This calculation is made simple by using the Date of Birth Calculator. (See next heading.)
Date of Birth Calculator
Given the date of death and the age at death, you can quickly calculate the date of birth with the Date of Birth Calculator. It is self-explanatory and easy to use.
If you are interested, the following is a description about how the age at death was (supposedly) computed. You don't need to read this in order to use the Calculator.
As it was usually calculated, the age at death is found in three steps:
(1) Years of age (X) is the age at last birthday; (2) from the last birthday count forward by months to the same day of the month in the same or following year, not to exceed the date of death, giving the number of months of age (Y); (3) count the number of days from the latter date to the date of death, giving (Z).
For example, let us calculate the age at death of a person born on April 4, 1857 who died on November 2, 1910. The last birthday was April 4, 1910, at which the person was 53 years old. We now count forward from this date: May 4, June 4, ..., to October 4, or 6 months. Finally, from October 4 to November 2 is 29 days (think of November 2 as October 33). The person's age at death would therefore be stated as 53 years, 6 months and 29 days, or 53/6/29.
There are some combinations of birth and death which do not lend themselves to proper representation in this manner. Someone born on October 30, 1886 who died on March 4, 1887, would be 0 years at death, but how many months? Counting forward from October 30 would bring us to ... February 30? This would in actuality be March 2 (1887 was not a leap year), so we might give the age as 0/4/2, but this would be an improper representation, as 0/4/2 would be the proper representation of a person born on November 2, 1886 who died on March 4, 1887. It is not clear how the age should be represented in such a case. Regardless of how we try to resolve this issue today, it is impossible to know how it might have been dealt with in the nineteenth century at times when it arose. Furthermore, the process of calculating the age at death is in itself error-prone. As with all gravestone information, just because it is carved in stone does not, unfortunately, necessarily mean that it is accurate.
Then, too, some combinations of date of death and age at death are impossible. (Someone who died on January 20, 1870 cannot be 10 years, 10 months and 21 days old at death.) The Date of Birth Calculator will report “Data is inconsistent!” in such a case, but will otherwise give a correct value if proper data is submitted.
Place names that can be confused
Guardian Angel cemetery in Stevens Point should not be confused with a small cemetery of the same name in the town of Almond.
There are St. Adalbert's cemeteries in Milwaukee and elsewhere as well as the one in the town of Alban.
There is a Pine Grove cemetery in Wausau as well as the one in the town of Pine Grove.
There is a Hillside cemetery in Marshfield as well as the one in the town of Lanark.
There are Union cemeteries in Mosinee and Milladore as well as the one in the city of Stevens Point.
There is a Restlawn Memorial Park in Wausau, and also one near Wisconsin Rapids.
St. Martin's cemetery at Ellis in the town of Sharon should not be confused with St. Martin's cemetery in the town of Almond. (Obituaries, even modern ones, sometimes locate the latter cemetery in the town of Buena Vista, but it is in fact just over the line in Almond.)
The churches (and their associated cemeteries) at Torun, Custer, and Fancher all have the name St. Mary's. Churches and their cemeteries at Almond, Heffron and Kellner all have the name St. John's.
St. Paul's cemetery in Stevens Point and St. Paul's cemetery in the town of Buena Vista are Lutheran. St. Paul's cemetery in the town of Oasis (Waushara County) is Roman Catholic.
