Pennsylvania Cemeteries and Obituaries

If no official church or courthouse record can be found, an ancestor's tombstone or obituary can provide a wealth of information.  The tombstone may give important dates and possibly the names of parents or spouses. Often family members will be buried near each other or in the same cemetery, thus providing clues to other branches of a family tree.

Obituaries can also provide family information as well as details of what profession or skill the ancestor may have had.

However, the researcher must keep in mind that family members, stone masons, and typesetters could have made mistakes in dates and name spellings.  Cemeteries may also have changed names just as churches formed and reformed under different names.

These sites may help you find the vital information that does not exist in formal institutional archives.