You can learn a lot from a tombstone...like the year you thought an ancestor was born isn't correct...or at least you find contradictory information. We all know that just because it's on the tombstone doesn't mean that it's correct (just like it's not necessarily correct in the obituary, the death certificate, etc), but if we look at all of these pieces of information together we can at least establish a date range to work with.
It's so important that we perform a reasonably exhaustive search. I know so many people that will take one piece of information and consider it gospel and verse, but you could be wrong. Track down as many records as you can. It could help you break through that brick wall!
[Thank you to Rob Watson for taking the picture of Teresa Villers' tombstone and posting it on FindAGrave, and thank you for permission to use the image on my blog!]
