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Family History Documents and Artefacts => Graveyards and Gravestones => Topic started by: julie7239 on Friday 12 May 17 12:13 BST (UK)

Title: Questions about how UK cemeteries work.
Post by: julie7239 on Friday 12 May 17 12:13 BST (UK)
I am curious generally about how UK graveyards work.  Do they always have paperwork showing who is buried in them and exactly where, and if so where do you find this?  I am also curious who pays for the maintenance of old gravestones?  Presumably in private cemeteries it is the new burials who pay for the maintenance of the old stones?  And a lot of old graveyards are beautiful places that councils maintain because they are of historic importance?  I wonder how threatened the old gravestones are that have no living family to care about them, are they ever just taken down and new burials put in their places, due to the need for space?

I wonder what the logistics are of an old gravestone, of somebody who died between say 1850 and 1920, meaning anything to anybody, such that if you photograph them and put them on the Find a Grave website anybody would find that useful?  How many hits do Find a Grave memorials tend to get anyway?  Who are these likely to be useful to?  People researching their family history mostly I suppose, but also historians in general?

Some of these old gravestones have so much genealogical detail on them, as well as being beautiful, that I wonder what happens to them.  I am curious about those people who lived in these places long ago.  Most of these people left little trace, they were not famous.  In one cemetery I read on some nuns' epitaph a request to pray for the dead; I am not especially religious, but find it deeply important to remember these people who lived and died and seem forgotten, and various different religions seem to have similar attitudes.

Also, I would be grateful for any tips on how best to photograph gravestones.  It can be a question of do you just get a close up of the information so it can be read, or do you try to get background into the photograph?  I think the most beautiful gravestone I photographed was maybe because it had a stone angel with a background of a bit of blue and white sky, other shapes of headstones, trees and flowers, and you could also read the inscriptions.  If I was wanting a photograph for my family tree, that is what I would want.
Title: Re: Questions about how UK cemeteries work.
Post by: Marmalady on Friday 12 May 17 13:08 BST (UK)
I am Graveyard Steward for our local Methodist Church so can answer some of your questions

1 Yes, there *should* always be paperwork to show who was buried, when & where -- but like everything else these records are only as good as the person keeping them.
2 Where the records are will depend greatly on how long ago the events took place and how quickly the record books get filled up. Church records will probably be deposited at the local Record Office at some time  --but we are still using the same Burial Book that was started back when the church was built in the 1870's -- so any queries about burials have to come via the church to me. Other busier churches may well fill their burial books quicker.
3 Maintenance of Graveyards is sadly a great expense for the churches concerned -- most can afford to do little more than keep the grass strimmed to a reasonable level. Care of the actual grave / headstone is for the family to deal with. We do periodic checks on the upright stones and any that are loose will be laid flat for safety reasons. If the family want them re-erected, it will be at their expense --but as most of the dangerous ones are from older graves there is not usually any family left to care.
4 Graves are not re-used -- I *think* it is currently against the law in most of the UK

Photographing graves -- for the grave photo to be usefull for family historians, you certainly need as clear a picture of the inscription as possible --but pictures showing the grave in full in its wider setting are also nice momentoes

I have found pictures of some of my ancestors / connections on Find-a-Grave, so uploading photos to the site is definitely usefull!
Title: Re: Questions about how UK cemeteries work.
Post by: arthurk on Friday 12 May 17 13:41 BST (UK)
Just to add a little to Marmalady's helpful comments:

In my experience with churchyards (mostly Church of England) it's unusual to find any contemporary reference to a plot or specific location in a church burial register. However, sometimes family or local history societies (and occasionally churches themselves) have surveyed churchyards so as to produce a reference plan that can be compared with historic registers. And sometimes when memorial inscriptions are recorded, there may be some kind of plan attached. Otherwise, since new graves were usually dug one after another in rows across a churchyard, the usual thing when looking for an ancestor's grave is to try to find a group of memorials of roughly the right age, and check around them one by one in the hope of spotting the right one.

In larger towns and cities many churchyards had no room for burials from around the middle of the 19th century, and some newer churches built around then didn't have room for a churchyard anyway. This led to the establishment of cemeteries by private companies and local councils. On the whole, I've found that their records give much more information about the exact location of burials.

Over time, more churchyards are filling up, and they can then be "closed" to new burials. (Existing graves can still be used, if there is room in them.) In this case the duty to maintain the churchyard can be passed to the local council, but this only applies to keeping it safe and tidy, and has nothing to do with record-keeping.
Title: Re: Questions about how UK cemeteries work.
Post by: familydar on Friday 12 May 17 14:36 BST (UK)
Otherwise, since new graves were usually dug one after another in rows across a churchyard, the usual thing when looking for an ancestor's grave is to try to find a group of memorials of roughly the right age, and check around them one by one in the hope of spotting the right one.

That only works if the churchyard isn't too "busy".  If lots of burials in quick succession, perhaps several per week or (for municipal cemeteries) per day, the ground would start to collapse if this happened, so the burials could be anywhere, although I'm sure they probably follow some sort of pattern.

Jane :-)

Title: Re: Questions about how UK cemeteries work.
Post by: dawnsh on Friday 12 May 17 15:31 BST (UK)
in your topic title you mention cemeteries rather than churchyards.

If you have a particular one in mind, find our who it belongs to.

There are municipal cemeteries which are maintained by local authorities, you can generally find them by going to the lcaol authority webiste and look in their a-z index for cemeteries and crematoria or burials or bereavement services.

There are also many that are still privately owned. In London for example you have Kensal Green, and in Surrey Brookwood.

You need to ask them all what their policy is regarding cleaning ths tones so you can take photos. In a lot, this is not encouraged as lots of wildlife and plants now make their homes there.

As to maintenance, it's down the the cemetery owner. So in some really old cemeteries, they are heavily overgrown as manitenance has not taken place.

In some, the lawns are routinely mown. It really depends.

Putting photos on findagrave is useful but you want to make sure you are not duplicating what is already there.

There are also other projects and some local history groups that do this

http://www.gravestonephotos.com/public/country.php?country=En

But also check beforehand that you can take photos, some cemeteries do not allow you to take photos if the headstone is not for your own family research.

As to actually taking photos, I used an interent search engine and looked for "take photos headstones tips" and got loads of results.
Title: Re: Questions about how UK cemeteries work.
Post by: julie7239 on Sunday 14 May 17 11:29 BST (UK)
Thanks for your helpful replies. 
Title: Re: Questions about how UK cemeteries work.
Post by: Tonykelly on Tuesday 16 May 17 18:36 BST (UK)
Just to add a little to what others have said.  Many family history societies have surveyed graveyards and churchyards, in Surrey for example volunteers from the  West Surrey society has been recording graveyards and churchyards for over 40 years, our latest survey was donated last year and is for a parish council maintained cemetery (ie not a church graveyard).   Our sister society - East Surrey- has also done much for its part of the county.

Our "Monumental Inscriptions" index is online in the members are of our website and has around 110,781 entries and growing,  a CD was published a year or two back which is available from our bookshop.  Other FH Societies offer much the same service.

So far we have records from around 280 graveyards and cemeteries We are also trying to identify all churches and cemeteries in the County since 1688,  to date we have identified 1047.


If you have a specific county or cemetery/churchyard in mind I would contact the local family history society and see what help they can give to you.   Just be sure to give as much information as you can.  When I get  queries from non members I often have to ask for more infromation before I can even begin to see what we have.


Good luck

-- 
Tony Kelly, 
Monumental Inscriptions
West Surrey Family History Society
+44 (0) 7515 666 159

http://www.wsfhs.org
tracing our roots ….
…. celebrating our heritage



Find us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/MISurrey

Follow us on Twitter @MISurrey
Title: Re: Questions about how UK cemeteries work.
Post by: wb54 on Friday 02 March 18 18:19 GMT (UK)
Hi everyone,

                  just want to say, a big thank you to everyone who has taken
                  photos of any headstone.  I was so taken back just to read
                  what was on my family’s grave.  it’s like iam standing there.

                   keep up the good work.    have also done some myself.

                           Billy.
           
Title: Re: Questions about how UK cemeteries work.
Post by: steadyrollingman on Sunday 14 October 18 09:44 BST (UK)
If I can just hijack your thread for a second... I had yet another disheartening experience this week when visiting a graveyard for the first time, arriving to find it was basically just a field with only three stones in it, aside from a handful around the wall. Spoke to a dog walker who thought it might have been cleared 20 years ago for safety reasons  ::)
So what is likely to have happened to the gravestones that were removed? Are they stored in a climate-controlled clean room with access restricted to security vetted people wearing hairnets and face masks? Or - more likely, I suspect - will they have been used as hardcore on a nearby road?
It's so frustrating as I found my GG Grandma's burial record last week - although she had remarried after her husband died, it turns out she was buried in the same parish as him 10 years later, despite having been living in a neighbouring parish. I would have loved to have seen a gravestone suggesting that the two of them had been reunited at long last, despite the attentions of an unwelcome interloper... (Even if it was for the more prosaic reason of saving money if they'd prepaid for a double grave!)
Title: Re: Questions about how UK cemeteries work.
Post by: medpat on Sunday 14 October 18 09:59 BST (UK)
My sister tried to find family graves at the local large council cemetery. It had closed for burials in 1984 and she went with a map from the local records office. Not a stone in sight, all taken away and huge lawns left. There were markers for the rows but no identifying marks for the graves and as the area had been or had naturally leveled off it was difficult to find any sign of graves. She gave up, our last relative in there was 1969.
Title: Re: Questions about how UK cemeteries work.
Post by: iluleah on Sunday 14 October 18 10:53 BST (UK)
It depends where in the UK they are and if they are connected to the church or are one of the town/city run ( or privately owned) cemeteries.

If the large municiple 'generally' they are run by the local council and many have search facilities on their council website, some free, some you have to pay to get details of who is buried where. Same with private, contact them via their website for details, free/fee will depend on each. Many have little to no space now for burials so only have cremations, so there is no head stone, some has a book of rememberance which is often under glass with the page opened for that date of details of who was cremated...so go on a different date and you will not be able to see and will have to pay for details from the council offices.
I used to live near to a large cemetery ( and used it as a short cut to school) My grandparents are buried there, she in the 1940s ( when my dad was 4yrs old) and my granddad in the 1960s. I could never find them until I contacted the council and got a grave number /plan even then it took a long time and all that is there is a cracked flat stone with a number on it. There is ground staff there cutting grass and lifting 'momentos' left on graves....and there is certainly a different 'feeling' between new/old now grave stones have to be agreed, size, colour, style and are very standard in straight tight rows, no grave boundary kerb and if you turn and look at the old part you see complete contrast with large, ornate stone wear.
From the councils website:
"You can buy a grave plot in a Leicester cemetery for a period of 50 years, renewable at the end of the lease." So realistically most are no renewed after 50yrs so up to the council what they do as it reverts back to them.

My cousin lives next door to the village church as far back as I can remember granddad, then uncle, now cousin cut the grass in the church yrd ( which is full) Last time I visited the church yrd was almost empty of stones and many lined the boundary wall.... I was told any damaged/unsafe headstones were removed as the church is liable if they fell and hurt someone, so H&S (although it makes for easy grass cutting)
My grandfather gave the church an acre of field just outside the village to use and that is the second church yrd and certainly for the last 30 yrs only cremations no burials although each has a small inscribed plinth.

There are many cemeteries who have 'friends of xxx cemetery' who  photograph gravestones and several have websites eg http://www.fowrcl.org.uk/

Findagrave used to be mainly US graves, it seems now lots of grave websites often run by individuals or 'friends of' have increased their site by adding theirs, there are several fee ones now in the UK too.

The difference between US and UK is that in the UK burials are not connected to death certs so for FH that can make it harder in finding where people are.
So like my dad who died in Derby hospital is registered in Derby as died, yet buried ( well cremated) in Leicester and there is no connecting records that show that, so someone in the future looking for my dad will find it hard to follow although there is the freebmd index to help

 
Title: Re: Questions about how UK cemeteries work.
Post by: Tonykelly on Sunday 14 October 18 11:05 BST (UK)
It's worth mentioning that many local family history societies have collected details of stones and other memorials in the area they cover.    My own society has more than 137,000 names recorded, although coverage more recent than say early to mid 20th century tends to be patchy as we don't have the volunteers anymore.

Contact the FHS for the area of interest, see http://www.ffhs.org.uk/members2/contacting.php if you don't know which society to contact

Tony Kelly
WSFHS Monumental Inscriptions

Surrey Family History Fair
Saturday 3rd November
Woking Leisure Centre, GU22 9BA
10am – 4.30pm
Free Admission
Free Parking (subject to Woking BC regulations)
The Monumental
details:
http://wsfhs.co.uk/pages/openday.php

Title: Re: Questions about how UK cemeteries work.
Post by: steadyrollingman on Sunday 14 October 18 11:26 BST (UK)
Thanks for that. I actually just remembered last night that I'd bought the local FH group's headstone transcriptions a year or so ago and then forgot all about them... Not sure when it was compiled but there was certainly nothing on there of relevance to me anyway, hence the forgetfulness.
Anyway I have been on the parish council's website and sent them a message so will hopefully get a response next week. But it would be good to know if there is a procedure that has to be followed when an English graveyard is cleared of headstones.
Title: Re: Questions about how UK cemeteries work.
Post by: Tonykelly on Sunday 14 October 18 11:51 BST (UK)
As iluleah said, it really depends on the contract that the executors signed with the cemetery owner, and the owners rules and regulations.

It's not something one usually thinks about when arranging a funeral, I know I didn't read the "small print" when arranging my parents funerals, and my brother's grave was reclaimed after 50 years which was a disappointment when I wanted to find it.
Title: Re: Questions about how UK cemeteries work.
Post by: rdkmt on Sunday 24 November 19 15:17 GMT (UK)
If I can just hijack your thread for a second... I had yet another disheartening experience this week when visiting a graveyard for the first time, arriving to find it was basically just a field with only three stones in it, aside from a handful around the wall. Spoke to a dog walker who thought it might have been cleared 20 years ago for safety reasons  ::)
So what is likely to have happened to the gravestones that were removed? Are they stored in a climate-controlled clean room with access restricted to security vetted people wearing hairnets and face masks? Or - more likely, I suspect - will they have been used as hardcore on a nearby road?
It's so frustrating as I found my GG Grandma's burial record last week - although she had remarried after her husband died, it turns out she was buried in the same parish as him 10 years later, despite having been living in a neighbouring parish. I would have loved to have seen a gravestone suggesting that the two of them had been reunited at long last, despite the attentions of an unwelcome interloper... (Even if it was for the more prosaic reason of saving money if they'd prepaid for a double grave!)

I was naively shocked when I found out my ancestors gravestones had been cleared, it seemed like a desecration. Luckily a local history society had noted some of the inscriptions before they were removed, so I found one that way. They also have the location, where presumably their bones lay? It would have been nice to be able to see a headstone though.
Title: Re: Questions about how UK cemeteries work.
Post by: Glen in Tinsel Kni on Wednesday 03 March 21 20:28 GMT (UK)
It's interesting yet odd to find a website recently that aims to photograph and list the burials within a large cemetery, many are listed on find a grave with photographs already but the group undertaking the project have had to obtain written permission from the council to take photographs as the headstones are deemed to be private property within a public area.

Another council in Derbyshire will only issue a map of a cemetery to staff who have to accompany people around the site as the map contains information that could identify those buried within it which is alleged to be a breach of data protection. I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry at that as once deceased the data protection is pretty much no longer applicable and there are headstones throughput the site with inscriptions that name those buried. Are the council about to bring in the sand blasters and remove names, fell the stones or cover them over to protect the identity of those within marked plots? There comes a point where the councils need to stop being silly about data protection and tend to some sites rather tan leave them to rot.
Title: Re: Questions about how UK cemeteries work.
Post by: Skoosh on Thursday 04 March 21 09:08 GMT (UK)
The big municipal cemeteries in Scotland date from the population boom post industrialisation & the cholera outbreaks of the 1840s when the kirk-yards couldn't cope and the scandals following entrepreneurs packing people into cholera pits. Most folk couldn't afford a stone in any case and the wooden markers are long gone. Every authority would have its own prices & practices and private religious burial grounds ditto, with the local Poor Inspector responsible for arrangements for pauper (terrible word) burials.
 As for praying for the dead, taboo in the Church of Scotland but the municipal cemeteries were non-discriminatory & took all-comers! ;D

Bests,
Skoosh.
Title: Re: Questions about how UK cemeteries work.
Post by: Guy Etchells on Thursday 04 March 21 14:48 GMT (UK)
If I can just hijack your thread for a second... I had yet another disheartening experience this week when visiting a graveyard for the first time, arriving to find it was basically just a field with only three stones in it, aside from a handful around the wall. Spoke to a dog walker who thought it might have been cleared 20 years ago for safety reasons  ::)
So what is likely to have happened to the gravestones that were removed? Are they stored in a climate-controlled clean room with access restricted to security vetted people wearing hairnets and face masks? Or - more likely, I suspect - will they have been used as hardcore on a nearby road?
It's so frustrating as I found my GG Grandma's burial record last week - although she had remarried after her husband died, it turns out she was buried in the same parish as him 10 years later, despite having been living in a neighbouring parish. I would have loved to have seen a gravestone suggesting that the two of them had been reunited at long last, despite the attentions of an unwelcome interloper... (Even if it was for the more prosaic reason of saving money if they'd prepaid for a double grave!)
The stones should have been laid flat over the grave, if they were taken from the graveyard/cemetery that is theft, if they were destroyed that is vandalism. In the UK gravestones are the property of the beneficiary of the person who bought them (and their beneficiaries) not the church or the owner of the cemetery.
Cheers
Guy
Title: Re: Questions about how UK cemeteries work.
Post by: steadyrollingman on Thursday 04 March 21 15:19 GMT (UK)

[/quote]
The stones should have been laid flat over the grave...
[/quote]

They SHOULD have, certainly from a compassionate standpoint or whatever. Thing is, since I wrote that post about people who died 1877 & 1890, I actually had a worse shock. Finally discovered where my GG-Uncle was buried in 1953, and when I went to check it out theother week, the whole cemetery was just a grassy field. His wife died in 1956, would almost certainly be buried there too. I even worked opposite that cemetery in late 1980s and had no idea it was a cemetery so I suspect it was cleared about 20 years after the last burial which is absolutely disgraceful.
I wrote to the parish council about it, no reply obv, think I need to chase them up for an explanation...
Title: Re: Questions about how UK cemeteries work.
Post by: Skoosh on Thursday 04 March 21 16:46 GMT (UK)
Unfortunately many of these stones were unsafe and probably some were a daft idea in the first place, don't remember the cemetery but a stone came down and killed a child here a couple of years ago. A Jewish cemetery near me with massive uniform stones has had them all taken down and they now lie on top of the graves.

Skoosh.
Title: Re: Questions about how UK cemeteries work.
Post by: steadyrollingman on Thursday 04 March 21 16:58 GMT (UK)
Yeah, to be fair, both of the cemeteries I mentioned are in coal mining villages and there was almost certainly the risk of, or full-on, subsidence. But still no excuse for complete removal of the stones. Another graveyard round here is closed until further notice due to unsafe conditions, which is fair enough, but just disposing of the gravestones is out of order. They may well contact next of kin about that, but that's not much help to those of us who don't know who those NOK were/are and would benefit from a visit.
Title: Re: Questions about how UK cemeteries work.
Post by: familydar on Thursday 04 March 21 17:39 GMT (UK)
I can remember as a child, more years ago than I like to admit, walking round the local graveyard and hoping to spot the resident ghost, reading the worn inscriptions on the old tombstones which had been laid flat to form the paths.  I'm sure the people memorialised on those stones weren't buried all higgledy-piggledy the way the paths meandered through.  Moving grave stones is nothing new, and sadly when the stones are repurposed as flagstones the inscriptions get worn away by people's feet.

Jane :-)
Title: Re: Questions about how UK cemeteries work.
Post by: Guy Etchells on Friday 05 March 21 17:51 GMT (UK)
Unfortunately many of these stones were unsafe and probably some were a daft idea in the first place, don't remember the cemetery but a stone came down and killed a child here a couple of years ago. A Jewish cemetery near me with massive uniform stones has had them all taken down and they now lie on top of the graves.

Skoosh.

It was possible the accident in Craigton Cemetery, Glasgow in 2015 where an 8 year old boy was crushed by a falling 7ft headstone.
Following the death, Glasgow City Council carried out a safety assessment at the cemetery and laid flat between 500 & 900 headstones over safety concerns.
A Fatal Accident Inquiry noted that failure to repair a hole in a perimeter wall was a "reasonable precaution and may have resulted in the accident being avoided.
Guy
Title: Re: Questions about how UK cemeteries work.
Post by: Skoosh on Friday 05 March 21 18:15 GMT (UK)
That was the death Guy, sad business.

Thanks,
Skoosh.
Title: Re: Questions about how UK cemeteries work.
Post by: Glen in Tinsel Kni on Thursday 18 March 21 21:28 GMT (UK)
In my old hometown in Lincs two churchyards were cleared of memorial stones, one during the 1980's the other so long ago nobody seems to remember. Around 100 stones sit around the perimeter of the more recently cleared churchyard and were photographed last week by the local heritage centre.  I often wonder what happened to the rest of them as there must have been three times that number originally.
Title: Re: Questions about how UK cemeteries work.
Post by: Skoosh on Friday 19 March 21 11:38 GMT (UK)
A section of Riddrie Cemetery in Glasgow is still fenced off from the public after an old 18th century pit opened up after heavy rain and swallowed graves, stones, coffins etc. The alarm was given when folk on the adjoining road heard the shouts from a young lad trying to save his dog from being swept down by the water, he couldn't hold onto the dog and was swept down into the bowels of the earth.
 The rescue services could do little and as Scotland's last pit was closed a "Mine-Safety!" team came up from the north of England with heavy pumps.
 I think it took a week or two but these guys, to their tremendous credit, got the body up. The lad was the son of one of the workers and lived in the cemetery. A very sad time, the guys should have got medals!

Bests,
Skoosh.
Title: Re: Questions about how UK cemeteries work.
Post by: Skoosh on Saturday 20 March 21 09:51 GMT (UK)
The Riddrie Cemetery incident happened in August 2002,

      https://www.news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/2181194.stm

Skoosh.