I received the first four prayer cards at each of my grandparents’ funerals. The fifth is my uncle and the remainder are all either great grandparents or great aunts and uncles. These cards have all been given to me by family members. Click a card to see a larger image.
For anyone not familiar, prayer cards also known as holy cards are about the size of a playing card and contain a religious scene or saint on one side and a prayer on the other. In the case of “In Memoriam Cards” given at Catholic funerals, the type of prayer cards I have, there is also information about the deceased person such as date of birth, death, sometimes burial date and place as well as serve as a keepsake and reminder of the loved one. Because of their compactness, the cards are handy to transport in a wallet, prayer book or bible and are used as personal devotionals. As a child, I remember my aunt’s prayer book stuffed with prayer cards bound by a rubber band, resembling a stack of baseball cards, and thinking, “that’s a lot of dead people”. Before mass she would take them out of her prayer book and look through them while praying.
However, for purposes of genealogy, funeral cards contain important information especially if you have no obituary or death certificate. Using the dates of death, funeral home or church name will help you obtain the above items. For example, if the date of death or location of an ancestor is unknown but you have the funeral card, use “Google” to find the location of the funeral home/church. Then check the local library in that city and using the microfilm you are able to narrow your obituary search using the date of death from the prayer card. The reference desk at most libraries will do obituary searches if you are unable to travel there but you must have the date of death. Just phone or email them. Likewise, with the exact date of death it will be much easier to obtain the death certificate from the county clerk, which always contains interesting information as well.
In closing, if any of my extended family have additional prayer cards that are not shown here I would love to add them just send me a scanned photo of the front and back. Thanks!