Mistakes appear on headstones more often than you might think. How does it happen? Family members "just know" that an ancestor served in the Civil War, but don't know what unit he might have joined. One of them gets picked to do the research, but doesn't really know how to go about it. Usually they find a published index of Civil War soldier service files. Well, here's a name that looks right and this man is from the right state - must be him!

We recently swapped notes with someone on the Alabama board who has another soldier's marker on his ancestor's grave. The name is right, but the dates don't match the soldier buried there at all. We thinks the marker information fits a near relative who lived in the same county.

Wrong information about the military service of one of my ancestors appears on his marker. Where it came from, I have no idea, but it's wrong. I wondered about it for years until finally finding the right information.

Anyone who spends much time in this business learns to be skeptical.

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