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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: gnorman on Monday 09 November 20 22:54 GMT (UK)
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Hi everyone, just a quick question. In your opinion is it worth employing a researcher to find the things youve had no luck with, even here on Rootschat?
I have a few graves I just cannot find but would it make any sense to hire someone to look in to it further or is this just a waste of time and money? In my place would you?
Thanks, Luke
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You have to ask yourself whether finding those few graves is important enough to justify the expense that may be incurred?
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Hi everyone, just a quick question. In your opinion is it worth employing a researcher to find the things youve had no luck with, even here on Rootschat?
No, I wouldn't .... the Chatters on here are just as good as a Researcher that has a degree.
I struck gold a few months ago, with someone taking a photo of my ancestors headstone and posting it on Find a Grave (Scotland). I think it is a matter of just checking Google every few months, new things are always popping up. You also have to take into account not everyone could afford to have a headstone. Just my opinon.
Cheers
KHP
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It is up to you but personally if you cannot find the graves yourself, then it could be they have no headstone, and it could be a lot of expense to hire a researcher and they cannot find anything either. Have you found any burial registers in cemetery records and/or church records? Burials in a churchyard/cemetery should be recorded regardless of whether any headstone was later put there to mark the grave.
I once hired a researcher, and soon ditched her as she often gave irrelevant entries when i asked her for just specific entries for anyone of that name in the registers, not just anyone of the same surname only.
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The question for me would be this: is the information I seek only available in person at a place that I can't visit?
If the answer is yes, and I'm not aware of any local volunteers, then I might hire a researcher.
If the answer is no, I would try to think of how a researcher would go about getting the information, and start making inquiries (keeping in mind that some information is no longer available).
Here's an example from several years ago. I couldn't find a death record for my 3x-g-grandfather on FreeBMD.
1st: I made an inquiry with the local archives for the city in England where he had lived. A researcher there with an interest in people of his ethnicity looked and found it, badly misspelled, on FreeBMD.
2nd: I purchased his death record, contacted the researcher and gave his exact date of death.
3rd: The researcher found his obit and sent me the info. The obit told me where he was buried.
4th: I contacted the place where he was buried (more than once) and got no response.
5th: I paid the local archives for a copy of the burial register page. There is no info on exactly where his grave is located.
6th: There used to be an online index of the headstones in this cemetery and my ancestor wasn't listed (although some of his descendants were -- on their own stones). So either he didn't have a stone (which I doubt) or the inscription was illegible at the time that the transcript was made or his stone was missed.
Finally: I have accepted that I won't know the exact location of his grave and am satisfied to know the cemetery where he is buried.
Here's one more example. We couldn't find a record of where my husband's great-grandparents were buried, even though we had a good idea of where they were probably buried.
1st: I purchased their death records.
2nd: I found obits for those who had them. Still no luck re. burial.
3rd: I contacted all the local cemeteries (whichever council is in charge). They had no record of their burials. I thought we were out of luck.
4th: My husband and I went to England. We planned our arrival date to coincide with the local archive's open house and managed to get there before closing time. We gave them a list of names, dates, etc.
5th: They passed our inquiry on to a local researcher as well as someone who worked at the church where my husband's grandparents were married. We also visited the church.
6th: One of the researchers at the church checked their registers, which were still at the church and not on file at the local archives, and found a bunch of burials for various relatives, including my husband's great-grandparents.
7th: They found the graves and sent us photos.
8th: We arranged to go back to the church and someone showed us the way to the graves. One grave appeared not to be marked. I mentioned the low markers I had seen at the base and on the sides of some graves and the church people did a bit of poking around and found some! They went to the trouble of uncovering the low markers for us.
Finally: I didn't know this until someone at the archives or church told me: church cemeteries are privately owned by the church and therefore do not fall under the purview of the local burial councils. If I had known this, I could have written directly to the church or the local archives and requested a look-up. However, if we hadn't been there in person, it isn't likely that someone would have gone to the trouble of digging around to find the missing markers, especially as maintenance of the graves is the responsibility of family members and the churchyard is a protected nature area (I can't remember why).
I hope this hasn't been too boring. If the information is out there, it's probably possible for you to get it through your own efforts (and a bit of luck), but sometimes having someone there in person is what you really need.
Several years ago, someone who was volunteering through Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness (RAOGK.org) went to a cemetery and found headstones belonging to some of my husband's other ancestors. He also sent me photos. At the time, there was no index available, and the church didn't know where the stones were (and didn't have anyone with the time to check for me).
Regards,
Josephine
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I dont know about graves but I have paid for research.at a record office before
They found an affiliation order for birth father of my.nana the lady who found it was really helpful it was first time she.d looked for one and I think she spent more than the hours work id paid for on it .
It was worth paying for as we wouldnt.have had his full name otherwise
and we certainly couldnt have found it ourselves .
even experienced researcher at a genealogy fair told me theyd never seen one before.
With something like graves youd have to be prepared to pay for their time and not get results .
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Personally I wouldn't hire a researcher. If the records are available for them to see, then they are available for you to see. If they aren't there, then a paid researcher wont be able to see them either.
As someone has just said. if you know there are records definitely available that are only available in person and you cant get to yourself, nor can find a volunteer to go for you, and they are absolutely vital to your ongoing research, and you have tried to get past the sticking point by looking at as many available sources as you can, then and only then might there be just a very small chance I would even begin to consider it.
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I have a few graves I just cannot find
Do you mean that you know in which burial grounds the graves are situated, but you can't pinpoint their precise locations?
Or do you mean that you can't discover where the people are buried in the first place?
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Coming from the opposite angle ;D
I am a (part-time) researcher on the Isle of Man.
I often get requests to find a grave location.
Because of the records available to me, I can usually find something in under an hour ;)
So minimal expense to the enquirer.
P.S.
No letters after my name.
Didn't go to University!
But I have 40+ years experience ;D
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Thank you all for your responses.
The two graves I am looking for are for two married couples - I have death certificates for all 4 but cannot find any graves nearby and there are no obituaries or wills that I can find either. I know at least one of the two is unlikely to have a headstone but to find any record of the graves would be enough for me.
Thanks, Luke
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Are you willing to give details?
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The snag with church burials is that they frequently have no idea where anyone is buried, unless there is a readable headstone.
And that can be modern as well!
When we came to inter my mother's ashes a couple of years ago, the idea was to put them in beside my father's. But he died some 30 years before my mother, and at the time it turned out that the church had kept no record of where they put his ashes (or even that he was there at all)! It was a church in a city, where most people were buried in the municipal cemetery, but Dad had been given special permission to have his ashes buried in the tiny churchyard, as an long time congregant and ex-PCC member, but we couldn't at that time put a plaque anywhere.
The church was very apologetic. But where I thought Dad was, was in a completely different part of the churchyard to where they were currently burying ashes - under a particularly nice-looking bit of lawn! So we compromised on as close as we could get.
So good luck with your search, but you may need to accept there may not be an answer.
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The four people in question are Michael and Ann Egan and Mark & Elizabeth Dale (Mark does actually have a will but it gives no help)
here are their death certificates;
ANN EGAN
Date and Place of Death: 14th September 1903, 11 Nelson Street, Failsworth, Prestwich
Name and Sex: Ann Egan, female Age: 57 years
Occupation: Wife of Michael Egan, a bricklayers labourer
Informant Name: Michael Egan, Widower of the deceased. Present at death. Of 11 Nelson St.
Date of Registration: 15th September 1903
Causes of Death: 1a. Strangulated Hernia, 7 days.
MICHAEL EGAN
Date and Place of Death: 2nd February 1909, Culcheth Hall, Newton Heath, North Manchester
Name and Sex: Michael Egan, male Age: 54 years Occupation: Labourer
Informant Name: Catherine Ford, daughter, 86 Oldham Road, Failsworth
Date of Registration: 3rd February 1909
Causes of Death: 1a. Bronchitis
MARK DALE
Date and Place of Death: 2nd December 1923, 9 Sun Street, Oldham
Name and Sex: Mark Dale, male Age: 63 years
Occupation: General Labourer, Cotton Spinning Mill
Informant Name & Qualification: Agnes Maddon, daughter, present at death
Informant Address: 9 Sun Street, Oldham Date of Registration: 3rd Dec 1923
Causes of Death: I. Chronic Bronchitis (Acute Attack), no P.M
ELIZABETH DALE
Date and Place of Death: 24th July 1917, 9 Sun Street, Oldham
Name and Sex: Elizabeth Dale, female Age: 50 years
Occupation: Wife of Mark Dale a Cotton Mill Labourer
Informant Name & Qualification: Mark Dale, Widower of deceased, present at death
Informant Address: 9 Sun Street, Oldham Date of Registration: 25th July 1917
Causes of Death: I. Cerebral Haemorrhage, 9 Days
II. Hemiplegia (paralysis on one side)
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Thank you all for your responses.
The two graves I am looking for are for two married couples - I have death certificates for all 4 but cannot find any graves nearby and there are no obituaries or wills that I can find either. I know at least one of the two is unlikely to have a headstone but to find any record of the graves would be enough for me.
Thanks, Luke
Luke, when you say you can't find any graves nearby, what sources have you checked? Have you called or written to all of the cemeteries (both council and churchyard) in the town or city where the individuals lived and/or died? Have you contacted any funeral homes that might still be in business to see if they have any records?
This is something that you could do or that you could hire someone to do; I guess it depends on whether you have the time or inclination to do it and whether you can afford to pay a researcher to do it for you.
Money is always an issue with me, plus I enjoy the challenge and have the time, so I try to do as much as I can. If my husband had been interested in tracing his own family tree, he'd probably have waited until he could pay someone to do it, because he has a lot less free time and doing this type of research doesn't appeal to him.
Here's another personal example. I knew the city in which my great-uncle had been buried because my mother told me a story about accompanying my grandfather to a cemetery in that city to look for his brother's grave. (I don't know if he found it.)
I didn't have my great-uncle's death record or an obit (he died in the 1950s or '60s). I didn't have any luck with the cemeteries. I wrote to all the funeral homes in that city and was lucky to get a response from one of them. They had a record of my great-uncle's burial, which included his parents' names (confirming it was the right guy) and the name of his common-law wife. He doesn't have a tombstone, so his grave won't show up in any listings (in print or online) of monumental inscriptions.
Regards,
Josephine
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Have you tried Manchester City Council, and their burial records search?
https://www.burialrecords.manchester.gov.uk/
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I went to the Yorkshire Archive in Bradford armed with my ancestors death details and spent an hour looking up their burial records which are not available online.
Additionally the local FHS may have a database of burial records so they may be able to help.
Check with the Council Bereavement Services to see if they offer a lookup service and what their fees would be.
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Scans of the records of most of the Oldham Civic Cemeteries are freely available to view on Family Search (you need to register first which takes a couple of minutes.)
https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/1482833
A camera icon beside a record indicates it is free to view.
There are an awful lot there.
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Also available directly from Oldham Council:
https://adt.oldham.gov.uk/BacasWeb/GenSearch.aspx
My son-on-law's family were from Oldham ;D
I found the Oldham registers were very useful!!
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Also available directly from Oldham Council:
https://adt.oldham.gov.uk/BacasWeb/GenSearch.aspx
That’s a lot easier!