Publication Info
Publication Details
Introduction
The Memorial Inscriptions of Kintore have been a long time in gestation. For many years, there was only an incomplete draft in the library at King Street. More recently, Bill and Iona Rogers overhauled this draft, replacing the “abbreviated” style of recording with literal transcriptions, and including most of the stones now visible, but providing only a schematic plan. Early in 2009, a new survey produced a detailed plan, showing both the location and the style of every stone. This was then reconciled with the earlier numbering system, and the existing readings re-checked, by ANESFHS members at the “Graveyard Outing” on 6th June of that year. Kintore had also been surveyed in the early 20th century by John Henderson, and published in his “Aberdeenshire Epitaphs and Inscriptions”, but as ever, he recorded only a small minority of stones, apparently selected because they dealt with “important” families, or were otherwise “interesting”. In a few cases, however, he recorded inscriptions which are now hard to make out, or which have entirely disappeared, and these have been included, in the body of the text or in the Appendix, as appropriate, with a note as to their source. At a fairly late stage in the editing process, I received an email from William Mathews, an ANESFHS member living in the USA, whose mother and grandfather had recorded a small number of family-related stones in 1921. Most of these are still visible, but one has disappeared entirely, and another has deteriorated, so the inscriptions as they recorded them are listed with the 2009 readings or quoted in the Appendix. The text of the inscriptions is reproduced as literally as possible, using all spellings (including some original and imaginative ones!) exactly as found. Oddities are not individually flagged up or commented upon, and no attempt has been made to “correct” any of them. To improve readability, the text of the inscriptions is rendered with upper- and lower-case following normal usage, and with a minimum of added punctuation as a substitute for divisions implied in the inscriptions by line breaks and changes of typeface. Personal names are shown in bold, and all editorial remarks are in italic. Various “minor” stones, such as hearts and shields, appear to have been moved from their original locations, and are lying on top of or are propped up against other stones. These are recorded where they were seen in June 2009 – we have not tried to “repatriate” any of them. Gavin Bell August 2009
Comments
Kintore Old Kirkyard, naming 1796 individuals between 1705 and 2005
