Mayflower Descendant Review

Mayflower Descendant
A Publications of the
Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants

The reviews are the opinion of the editor (unless indicated otherwise). They are solely for the aid of our readers. Reviews appear in every issue of the journal. If you would like to subscribe or order any back issue, please click here.

The Rhode Island Genealogical Society publishes the following book. To order, make a check payable to RIGS with $4.95 p&h and R.I. residents sales tax $2.45. Mail to RIGS Books, PO Box 211, Hope RI 02831 or order online at www.RIGenSoc.org.

Newport, Rhode Island Colonial Burial Grounds by John Eylers Sterling, Barbara J. Austin, and Letty R. Champion, Cherry Fletcher Bamberg, ed. (Hope, R.I., 2009), hardcover, xxx + 546 pp., ill., maps, bibliography, appendices, index. $35.00 and with 2 DVDs $59.00.

RIGS has produced many cemetery books previous to this one and there is also their wonderful cemetery database to aid researchers. However, this volume and companion DVDs stand out above all others. The book alone is richly illustrated with carefully photographed gravestone images that include the oldest in Rhode Island – John Coggeshall Sr. who died in 1647. The preface details the history of the cemeteries in Newport as they differ from other Rhode Island towns. The introduction describes the project, and that there had been many transcriptions in the past, but none were complete. This book represents the work from the past and what is now present in each cemetery. Over 1200 errors were corrected in the old transcriptions, 501 stones no longer surviving identified, and 320 stones that had been missed previously. There is a description of how best to photograph gravestones.

Each section begins with an explanation about the history and other details of the cemetery. The large Common Burying in divided into sub-sections. There is a map for each section. Each entry for a gravestone is in the order it physically exists in the section. The information presented is detailed:

Photograph of stone available (i.e. the stone still exists or they have an old photo)
Section (for the Common Burying Ground only)
Map Number
Name on the stone (with husband of, dau. of, etc. if on stone)
Birth date or year (calculated year if only death date with age)
Death date or year
Age (in two formats)
Tabular coded column (see p. xxii for codes) for:
- Composition
- Condition
- Shape
- State (i.e. standing, etc.)
- Carving (motifs)
- Legibility

There is an appendix with discussions on removed stones, broken and missing stones (and how they were identified), causes of death noted, and heraldic gravestone iconography. There is a bibliography followed by an index that includes birth and death years.

The two DVDs contain over 8500 images of the gravestones and cemeteries. There is an index of images in two formats of Word and in a dpf file. The name of each image is coded for the cemetery and then given alphabetically, last name first, including years. Any gravestone is easily located whether you are using the inscriptions in the book, the book index, or the DVD index. The images are coded so you know before viewing if there is a headstone and footnote digitally combined, a monument with all sides stitched together, composite of lower and upper images, images of front and back, or footstones only.