Is a grave a reliable source for someone's name and surname?

Question

Hi, I need help again because of a weird find I made yesterday on familysearch. I tried to start a family tree there and searched for all the Rizzato people in Rovigo through the engine. I found there a Linda Rizzato who was born in the same year of my great aunt and married to the same man she was married to. The weird thing is that the parents on the birth certificate attached to the profile appear to be Maria Mazetto and Vittorio Rizzato but my great grandparents were named Maria Mazzetto (with two Z) and Luigi Rizzato. I know it for sure because they are buried together with Linda and her husband in my family grave of which I take care personally. Can it be possible that the name on someone's grave can be wrong?

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

yes, this is definitely possible. Use it as a source, but corroborate with other sources

Comments

Equally, names on certificates can be misspelt, or different from names used in later life.

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Certificate issues can be a problem.  I have one individual with three wildly differing dates and places of marriage with each child's birth certificate.  The midwife being the informant and most probably guessing!

Answer 2

Hi, I have found that no form of source is always reliable.  In the past especially there were variations in spelling in many records.  My dad died in 2000 and his second wife died a few years later.  She lived in a different state and although I  attended her funeral, I was surprised the following year to find her surname on the headstone spelled with an "s" at the end (Cushings instead of Cushing).  You just have to use your own judgement about the correct spelling.  I usually make a note about any spelling variation in records on my profiles.

Answer 3

They could both be "right", as a person's name and spelling can change during their life, due to error or intentionally. I have several ancestors who changed their own surname spelling during their own lives, and many more who started using different given names at some point.

Very old spellings can vary even within the same document, as not everyone could read and write. Death certificates and gravestones are often "wrong" since they are informed by younger relatives and not the deceased people themselves. Censuses are also often wrong, as the census taker may mishear the interviewee or the information collected may be second-hand from a neighbor or landlord.

To prevent constant changes to profiles as people disagree over the "right" name, WikiTree regard's the chronologically first documented name as the WikiTree name, but then allows alternate names and spellings to be noted in various fields or in the biography itself to clarify further.

In your case you should find the earliest document (of reasonable validity) you can with each of your grandparent's names, use that as the WikiTree name, and add information for variations. If you later find an even earlier valid document with a different spelling, you can update the WikiTree profile accordingly.