Can you read the year on Snooks?

Have you tried doing a rubbing?

I'm finding lots of Snooks in PA but I can't make out the rest well enough to formulate a search.

The last letter of the first name almost looks like a Q.

Nope, I can't read the year; that's why I went looking for him online.

I don't think there's room for SAMUEL plus a Q, so I'm assuming it's an L.

We've been advised not to do rubbings anymore. I think it would be difficult on this stone anyway, given how rough and uneven it is.

I got an email from my English cousin this morning. He says he's on Ancestry, but they don't provide death certificates. His purpose in seeking them is to learn the maiden name of the siblings' mother, Amelia Phillips. He bought her death certificate, which says her maiden name was Phillips, which was also her married name. That's possible, of course, but I guess he wants to check further.

Pennsylvania Death Certificates are available online through Ancestry but only from 1906 to 1963. 1906 is when the state started keeping the records. Prior to that the County maintained the records and the dates vary from county to county.

That sad tombstone is so weathered I can barely read it. Does your camera offer you the option to view it like a negative? Sometimes that helps to decipher the writing.

Ah . . . I can turn it into a negative in Photoshop. Let's see:

Alisande, turning it into a negative really helped. It does look like Samuel Snooks, Died June 28, 185( or 8)?, Aged ? years. The last two words of the two lines below may be "the Angel". When doing cemetery research, look at the graves they are buried close by (next to, in front of, or behind) for clues, most of the time there are one or more relatives. If you're lucky, Samuel Snooks may have shown up on a census record for that county prior to death, so try that route. There were also periods when a listing of the deceased for the year was given on a "Death Index," This was an accounting for health issues in the 1800's. I know this was the case for Ohio but am unclear regarding other states.

Genforum has census records online for free through the use of your library card. You can go into your public library and search Ancestry census records online. Mormon genealogy local libraries are everywhere throughout the country, available for everyone. Microfilm can be requested from them and is available to the public.

Since you can't do a rubbing, take a piece of aluminum foil and press it over the stone using a soft cloth. Carefully remove the foil. You may have to hold it this way and that in the sun and shade but you might get the missing letters and numbers. I succeeded in doing that this summer to a stone that looked worse than that one.

Thanks for the tips, both of you. Good to know. I'll have to try the aluminum foil.

Sometimes I take a picture without looking carefully at the stone, thinking it'll be legible. From now on I'm not going to leave that to chance.

I read that if you take a spray bottle of water and spray it. it helps..

Thanks, Ruthie. I could bring one with me. I usually carry a microfiber cloth to gently remove some of the debris, but didn't have one this time. I need to go back with some way of removing a mat of grass and weeds that has grown over a stone. I guess it was originally set at ground level, but now it's essentially recessed. All I could read was the first letter of the name.

I don't want to scrape away at the granite. Any ideas?

Is it okay to use a soft dry toothbrush to brush away gunk that has accumulated in the crevices?

FindAGrave recommends using a soft brush (and sometimes water) to clean a flat (horizontal) stone. As for the others, they firmly advise not doing anything to it unless you're related to the deceased.

I've read other instructions as well; most of these advise not touching the stone if it's deteriorating. At a cemetery I photographed earlier in the summer, many of the stones had tent caterpillars on them--many, many caterpillars. I used my microfiber cloth to knock them off, but would have preferred a broom!

Spraying with water and then taking the picture in the sun and another in the shade might do it, too. I've had good luck with spraying water but the stone I used the foil on was just too far gone.

On another note, I was perusing the local cemetery map today and found a Snook. I'm going to find it tomorrow. Won't help you in PA but then again, with the help of census, maybe it will. My people moved around a lot and someone buried in PA and someone else in IA would not surprise me one bit.

I am looking on Newspapers.com and am finding references to "Samuel Snooks," but so far haven't found anything about the death of a child.

Susan, there are 4 Phineas Phillips buried in two different cemeteries here in Cincinnati. The one you ask about specifically is buried in Adath Israel Cemetery. They are all on FindAGrave already. There is a picture but if you would like more, I would be happy to do that for you.

I just reread and see that you are looking for death certificates. I can try, I haven't looked for those before.

Thank you, Murraysmom. I hadn't seen those FindAGrave memorials before. Phineas is my great-grandmother's brother. It was only a few years ago that I learned the Phillips line of my family started out as Sieradzki. I had no idea I was part Polish. Then when I had my DNA tested I learned I was also part Scandinavian and Italian. The latter was an even bigger surprise. :-)

My cousin hopes to find the maiden name of Phineas' mother, Amelia, on one of her children's death certificate. He obtained the one for my great-grandmother, Esther (whose name can be taken off the list above), but that gave both her mother's and father's name as Phillips. Could be true, of course, but he thinks it's a mistake.

Thanks again!

Oh you are welcome!! I'm glad you were seeing something new. I looked into the death certificate issue and I can't find any site that has it for free. The county charges $24 to get a copy and they say that anyone who died before 1908 may not even have a certificate. If I find out anything further, I'll let you know. That's quite a mixture you are made of!! LOL