Brick Wall

I have a question.  Why do you put somebody's name on a tombstone, with the date of birth, but leave out the date of death?  Uncle Nick has been the only dependable Riley--he participated in censuses--from 1880-1930.  I found a record of his marriage on familysearch.org.  Ancestry.com is where I found obits for his wife and a date of death for his daughter and son in law.  But I cannot discover when the man died, and it's frustrating.

Reading this, people might wonder why I placed so much emphasis on Mr. Riley's reliability?  Firstly, his brother, Andrew, my great grandfather, went out on an errand one day and never returned, abandoning a wife, and at least three sons.  My grandmother had already been adopted by her uncle, Tom Riley, before her father left home.  I've searched all available records, and cannot find birth certificates for Grandma or her brothers.  The first time they appear in a census is 1900 for Grandma, and 1920 for my great grandmother, and her sons.

Add to this the mysterious Uncle Charlie.  I never knew Grandma had a third brother until I searched ancestry.com and found a Charles Walter Riley, living with my great grandmother, listed as her son.  His WWI draft card named my great grandmother as his mother, and a search of findagrave.com showed he died in 1957.  Grandma never told Mom about him, and when I told her, Mom's reaction was ' he's not my uncle because we were never formally introduced".