Orange County Indexed · Worked research guide
Telling apart the Thomas Ruffins at St. Matthew's
A burial listing can help identify a person, but names repeat and cemetery records vary in detail. Combine the cemetery's location and inscriptions with other records before drawing conclusions about identity or family relationships.
Features used in this guide: Maps · Places
Ask: Which Thomas Ruffin is named in the record I have found? Write down any known birth or death year, spouse, and place. A surname or a prominent family name alone may lead to several plausible matches.
Open Places and select Cemeteries and family burial grounds under the map. Find the point for St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in Hillsborough and follow its link, Burials recorded at Cemetery Census. The same listing is linked from the St. Matthew's Episcopal Church site page, under Research sources. Orange County Indexed supplies the route to the cemetery; the burial entries stay on the Cemetery Census website. A map point marks the cemetery, not an individual grave.
Cemetery Census lists four people named Thomas Ruffin at St. Matthew's. One entry gives 16 November 1787 to 15 January 1870; another gives 21 September 1824 to 23 May 1889; the other two are later men of the same name (1852 to 1922 and 1862 to 1900). Keep them separate. Compare the dates with your starting record and with the index's person pages for Thomas Ruffin and Thomas Ruffin Jr., then investigate any remaining candidates.
Read the survey notes at the top of the cemetery page: the churchyard was surveyed in 1973 and rechecked in 1976, and most markers were photographed in 2012. Distinguish transcribed inscriptions from added notes about family and career. Some entries say "No Inscribed Stone," so ask where those names came from. Open the photograph linked from a name when there is one, or ask the church about its burial registers. If visiting, check access arrangements and record what is legible without altering the stone. A monument may have been erected later than the burial.
Nearby graves and a shared surname suggest questions to investigate. Compare explicit relationship statements with an obituary, probate file, marriage record, or church register. A missing listing may reflect an unmarked grave, an incomplete survey, or a spelling difference; it does not establish that the person was buried elsewhere.
The St. Matthew's listing has separate entries for a Thomas Ruffin born in 1787 and a Thomas Ruffin born in 1824, as well as two later men of the name. Their different lifespans help distinguish the records. The listing alone does not establish every relationship among the people buried in the churchyard.
Save the cemetery name, the entry, its dates, the source link, and the survey information. Take unresolved identity or relationship questions to OCPL's Local History Liaison, the church, or the Durham-Orange Genealogical Society, which works in partnership with Cemetery Census.
