A gravestone found in a kitchen bench has grabbed the attention of family history buffs helping to solve the mystery of Charlotte Taylor.
The Launceston, Tasmania family put a call out to find Charlotte's ancestors so the gravestone can be returned.
None of her family have come forward, but historians, amateur family researchers and lovers of family history responded to the Free's call.
Who was Charlotte Taylor? History buffs do the research
Charlotte Taylor, nee Parsons, was born, married and lived in Deloraine, in Tasmania's Meander Valley.
She was one of 12 children, and with her husband Charles, had six children of her own - Elvy, Reginald, Amy, Laura, George and Winifred.
Newspaper clippings from The Examiner and The Advocate show Charlotte died in Launceston's private hospital in 1934, and was privately interred to Deloraine.
Charles died in 1949, and they are both buried in the Deloraine General Cemetery.
Launceston Historical Society president Marion Sargent, who was intrigued by the Free's discovery, said a new gravestone would have been made for the couple.
The question remained, how did the original gravestone for Charlotte end up in a house built in the 1950s in Launceston?
Ms Sargent said records show that Charlotte was privately buried, but do not say where.
Her guess was that Charlotte was buried at Bower Banks, which was a Taylor property located at the old flour mill in Deloraine.
"This headstone was a fascinating discovery. We know of others headstones ending up under houses and used as rubble, but this one is different," Ms Sargent said.
"We don't know where she was buried, it could well have been at Bowerbank, and I guess the property was sold. If the headstone was there, maybe the new owners didn't want it."
Puzzling: How did it move from Deloraine to Launceston?
This is a question that arose amongst the sleuths who responded to the Free's call out.
Newnham resident Graeme Pedder, who has the Taylor name in his family history but does not believe he is related to Charlotte, did his own research.
He said he believed the kitchen bench gravestone, which would have been worth a lot of money, may have been picked up by the funeral director and either passed on or sold.
"So the original headstone with Charlotte's name would have been recycled, to be used wherever, for example, a bench top carving board," Mr Pedder said.
Ms Sargent agreed that the gravestone was valuable, and was perhaps picked up by a builder somehow, and ended up in the kitchen bench of the 1950s home near Launceston.
"It was interesting that it came all the way from Deloraine but not knowing who the builder was, or anything like that, it makes it difficult, and subject to conjecture."
She said re-using old gravestones for building purposes was not unheard of.
