CEMETERIES
Cemeteries, particularly Jewish cemeteries, are treasure troves of
genealogy information. Jewish gravestones almost always provide certain key
facts about an individual (sometimes difficult to find
elsewhere): the Hebrew names of the deceased and their father and the date of death. Some include other facts, such as
the mother's name or the name of the town they were from. However, many
gravestones go beyond factual information and express
personal qualities of the deceased that may have only been known by
those who knew them closely at the time (perhaps centuries ago) and
convey deep emotions through poetic language or intricately carved
symbols.
The Hebrew found on Jewish gravestones is often difficult to decipher,
even for those well versed in the language, because it is
often written with frequent use of acronyms and abbreviations. Even
when words are expressed in full, their contextual meanings often
differ in nuanced ways from their dictionary defintions.
Some convenient and useful, though by
no means comprehensive, online
references are:
The basics:
http://www.jewishgen.org/infofiles/tombstones.html
More detailed lists:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hebrew_acronyms
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~orjgs/Abrrev.pdf
A dictionary of Talmudic words (many Aramaic phrases):
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Dictionary_of_the_Targumim,_the_Talmud_Babli_and_Yerushalmi,_and_the_Midrashic_Literature
An excellent reference book is:
A Field Guide to
Visiting a Jewish Cemetery, by Rabbi Joshua L. Segal