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During the 1980s volunteers, many of them from our Society, transcribed the key family details from inscriptions in churches, cemeteries and commemorations around the county. In due course the information was transferred from paper slips to a database. This data is at our Resource Centre and on Findmypast - see the Our Records on Findmypast page on this website for links.
There are more than 290,000 transcripts of inscriptions from churches, cemeteries and commemorations around the county. Although the 1980 survey forms the bulk of the database, fewer - but still important - entries are from inscriptions that appeared elsewhere: some in documents held in the Wiltshire Museum in Devizes (such as informal lists made by clergy over the centuries), some 3000 from Quaker burial records, and some from the often detailed information in Thomas Phillipps's survey of 1822.
For the above reasons, the entries should be taken as an indication that at some time and place, some really helpful people did today's researchers a favour and recorded inscriptions. Of course it is possible that since then the wording has become no longer visible because of weathering or the memorial has been moved, removed, or buried by soil or vegetation. All the same, the entries' potential value remains great, as the recorded locations, dates and relationships can help build our family trees, often adding unexpected information about occupations, bequest or deaths in far-off places.
When transcribed each memorial was allocated a reference number, which would be used for the the inscription for every person on that memorial. This would happen each time a memorial's wording was transcribed: consequently if it was listed in the 1980s survey results and also, for example, in the Museum lists, then the same memorial could appear more than once with different reference numbers each time. The wording might not match, as of course the original choice of relevant items, and reading of the inscription, might vary from person to person.
One limitation with the FindMyPast facility is that you cannot search on the reference number for other people on the same memorial. Therefore, if you believe that there could be others on a memorial, you can try other people with the same surname and see if they have the same reference number. An alternative is to use our research service via the Contact Us page as in our Resource Centre we have on fiches an alternative version of the database.
These complications can be frustrating, so please remember that, as mentioned above, "at some time and place, some really helpful people did today's researchers a favour and recorded inscriptions."
