Cemetery and burial records may hold the clue to 4th great-grandma's maiden name. You may have to work outside the box a bit, however, the farther back you go.
Study the list of burials closely for any clues.
If the cemetery is an older one, with only a few families interred there, find out if the families were related in anyway. They may have just been neighbors, but the folks may have belonged to 3-4 families that intermarried.
If you are working from church cemetery burials, find out what other records are available for the church.
Check for burial permits or other cemetery records that may offer clues. Who purchased the plot? Who else is buried in the plot? Of course you may run into "Mrs. Howard Smith" in the burial record.
Although they are more recent records, try to find death certificates. The parents may be given, providing the informant has knowledge of the decedent's parents. Death certificate searches apply mostly to post-1880 deaths.
The biggest stumbling block in this record group is having your ancestor buried in an unmarked grave and missing from the records.
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