Headstone Rubbing Workshop

Date: Wednesday, August 21, 2013 in St. John’s (weather permitting)

Date: Wednesday, September 11th, 2013 in Carbonear (weather permitting)

Time: 1pm-3pm

Cost: $20.00 (includes materials)

Headstone rubbings are made by using charcoal to transfer (or rub) text and images from the surface of a headstone onto a sheet of paper. This paper can then be stored to help preserve the genealogical information that is on the headstone.

Our Headstone Rubbing Workshop is for people who enjoy doing hands-on activities and are interested in genealogy, folklore, history, documentation, and archiving. 

Workshop Description:

The Headstone Rubbing Workshop will focus on the process of making rubbings without doing damage to historic headstones. It will also cover basic headstone preservation tips, reasons for documentation, other documentation techniques, and discussions on the symbolism that appear on headstones.

The St. John’s workshop will be held at the General Protestant Cemetery. The oldest headstone on the site dates from 1842, and it is in this older part of the cemetery that we will be creating our rubbings.

Our Carbonear workshop will likely be held at the Bethany United Cemetery, but we are still awaiting final confirmation. Once registered, we will contact you with the location of this particular workshop.

About Lisa: 

Lisa Wilson is the Heritage Outreach Officer for the HFNL and will be facilitating the Headstone Rubbing Workshop. She is a folklorist with a material culture background, who in past projects has used rubbing as a tool for recording information, particularly in cemeteries that have not been documented in this way. She also has experience with cemetery restoration and conservation, having lead a cemetery restoration project on Long Island in Placentia Bay in 2012.

At the end of the workshop, participants will be able to take home at least one headstone rubbing that they have made on their own.

All necessary materials will be provided, but participants should wear clothing they can get dirty, as using charcoal can be messy.

To register please contact:

Lisa Wilson at 709-739-1892 ext. 3, or lisa@heritagefoundation.ca

Space is limited for these workshops

Please Note: In case of bad weather the backup date for St. John’s is: August 28th, 2013.

For Carbonear the backup date will be Friday, September 13th.