Inscription on headstone

So moving along from the obituary for John Hall this is the information on the family headstone located in Drymen Parish Church.

In loving memory of

John Hall

died 1st. September 1898

aged 71 years

his wife, Jane Wilson

died 7th March 1903

aged 74 years

Petrina McKellar

died 12th March 1930

aged 66 years

wife of John Hall schoolmaster

died 16th May 1943

aged 82 years

Jane Wilson Hall

died 4th June 1944

The headstone is not located in it's original position. It used to be in the lower section but there was a flood so it was moved to higher ground. John and Jane Hall did not die in Drymen and it took a long time to find where they actually lived. Jane Wilson Hall was daughter to John and Petrina. She died suddenly in a work related accident.

So if all you had was this tombstone to go by for family information what could you work out?

You know from the death dates and ages an approximate birth date for everyone except Jane Wilson Hall. You also can "assume" that this is three generations of a family.

To find the death records you would work from Drymen outwards. In this case you would be unsuccessful on the Drymen part for three of them. 

John and Peterina (Petrina) both died in Drymen. 

Jane died in Alexandria, Lanark at her work. (Fell down stairs and broke her neck.) I have a copy of her obituary in one of my files. It makes for interesting reading.

John and Jane Hall both died in Croftamie, Dunbartonshire but we only found that out when we broadened our search to find them in a census record outside of Stirlingshire.

Other records that could be looked for based on the headstone information is  possible birth records for everyone, marriage records for John Hall/Jane Wilson and John Hall/Petrina McKellar. 

If you utilize the information on the tombstone and the obituary I wrote about in the previous post you would know to start in Drymen for birth records for John & Petrina's children but to look outside of Stirlingshire for birth and marriage records.