Six steps, the same every time.
A single family stone and a full burying-ground survey both go through every one of these — just at different scale.
Locate & Assess
Find the stone, check its historic designation if any, and assess condition before touching anything. Some stones can be gently rubbed. Others, especially fragile or officially protected ones, can only be photographed.
Clean, Gently
Soft brush and water only — never wire brushes, never chemicals. Lichen and moss get cleared just enough to see the surface, not scrubbed off entirely, since some lichen removal can take a thin layer of stone with it.
Photograph & RTI
Standard photography first, then Reflectance Transformation Imaging for anything worn enough that raking light might recover detail invisible to the eye. RTI has brought back lettering on stones we'd otherwise have logged as illegible.
Rub, If Appropriate
The traditional method — paper and wax or graphite — still captures detail no camera quite matches, but only where the stone's condition and any town or conservation rules allow direct contact.
Transcribe & Cross-Reference
Working out the actual text, checking it against town vital records, wills, and other documents to fill gaps the stone itself can't. Anything reconstructed rather than read directly goes in square brackets.
Archive
The finished record — photographs, RTI files, rubbing, transcription, and any cross-referenced documents — goes to the family or town, and where the town agrees, into the public digital archive.
Almost never the photography. Almost always the cross-referencing.
Photographing and RTI-ing a stone takes an afternoon. Confirming who's actually named on it, when town clerks spelled things inconsistently and half the register from that decade has water damage, can take considerably longer. We'd rather take the extra week than publish a name we're not confident about.