Incorrect date on grave?

Question

Has anyone else had this problem?  I have a Nancy Boyd Poe in my tree born abt 1812.  I am 99% sure I have found her grave with no birth date but with a death date of 1899.  This is in the same cemetery as many of her neighbors  and her daughter and her daughter's husband is buried. The problem is that in the 1900 census she is listed as a mother-in-law in the house hold that includes her daughter and her daughter's husband.  I have not been able to locate another Nancy Boyd Poe's grave in the area.  She would have had to died around this time period as  she would have already been 87 years old.   1899 grave date vs 1900 census?

Answer 1

I have come across this a few times!  Most times this happens when the original marker was wooden, and fire, time and weather have eroded it and good intentioned family members have erected a new marker in its place.  

It can get very confusing!!

Answer 2

I have  this one

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Alexander-6480

Her death cert lists 1923 and her marker says 1925

 

It does happen maybe the marker brought several years after the death and  the actual date unsure so they estimate or just an error

Comments

Maybe the mason read 1923 as 1925 and the family either didn't check or didn't bother changing it.  3 and 5 are often mixed up in handwriting.

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I would think the death certificate would trump everything else. Just ensure you record the date of death and not the date of issue or burial.

Answer 3

My grandmother's headstone has the wrong birthdate, Wolfenden-1, http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=9338436.  My father refused to have it fixed and no one of my generation has yet to go against his wishes.   I have run into this several times in digging when the headstone does not match death records.

Comments

Absolutely - I've even seen that sort of thing annotated in Find-A-Grave from time to time. Where the headstone reads one date, the description is different, and there's an explanation below as to why the headstone was incorrect.

On the flip side, I've also seen records that were just wrong, and after looking at the photo, it's clear they misread things. In doing the Cemeteries project, I've corrected all number of errors out there after photographing the headstone and matching it to a record that was obviously done incorrectly. I do my best to try to fix those problems as I come across them (if I can).

Answer 4

Thing is, the census could also be wrong.  While they tried to talk to the household, if they had to, they talked to neighbors.  I've seen at least one census where they seem to have talked to a neighbor's child.  Ages way off, and spelling all phonetic.

Put it in a Discussion section at the bottom of the bio.