Who Goes with Who?

[Pinetree]

A sad fact that I'm sure we have all found is that some our ancestors died very young and their widowed spouses married again.  So what happened when the remaining people died?

Does anyone know whether there were any traditions or customs as to who was buried with who or was it just a situation that those left behind had to deal with as diplomatically as possible.

I can't see any particular pattern in my own tree, I just wondered what others thought.

Pinetree

[MarieC]

Hi Pinetree

Just speaking for my own family, I think it might depend on all kinds of things.  Whether burial arrangements had been discussed in either marriage, and/or planned for; whether there was a "family plot" that people from a particular family expected/were expected to be buried in; whether there was any difference/change in religion.  I've even found quite a recent case where a married couple were not buried together, because there was a very difficult person in charge of the cemetery when she died (after him), and he refused to let anyone be buried in the monumental section even if there was a family grave.  She had to go in the lawn cemetery.  So even bureaucracy can have a hand in this! 

MarieC

[suttontrust]

On a related point, I was looking through indexes (indices?) of monumental inscriptions this morning in the library, looking for people who I know died locally, but they're not there.  It struck me that if the family of the deceased were too poor to afford a headstone, we will look in vain for MIs. 

[CarolBurns]

With my Great Grandad, Edward John Owen the problem was solved by his children

He married Mary Jones first and had 3 sons. When Mary died he remarried and had 10 more children.

My Grandad was one of the 3 from the first marriage and he, along withhis brother Edward died before their father. The other son had moved away and when Edward died in 1962 his second wife buried him in a double plot to be used for her when she died (1984). I have never been able to find Mary's grave so either she is buried below Edward or in a grave with no headstone. I will never know as the remaining children do not know where she is either.

I think suttontrust could be hitting the mark about families being too poor to afford headstones so the graves have remained unmarked. Our search becomes harder

Carol

[AngelaR]

I doubt if the problem was any easier then than now - in last last few years of her life, my mother was frantic at the thought that her current husband wouldn't be buried with her, but that his daughter would insist he was buried with his first wife (her own mother). It started to become a tug of war as to who owned the poor chap.......

Angela

[Shaztoni]

Mine are buried all over the place, my great grandfather has his own grave while his wife my great grandmother who died ten years later is buried with her youngest son. Why I have no idea.

Sharon

[kerryb]

I think suttontrust is right, I have found very few of my families graves where they should be.  I just think that as Ag labs most of them were too poor to have headstones.

Makes the few I do find even more precious!

Kerry

[Shaztoni]

Even with out the headstones they should be on a burial record surely. I have been able to find most of mine on burial records.

Sharon

[Pinetree]

Thank you all for your input.

I think one of the more touching examples from my own tree is where children (that died as infants) from the wife's second marriage are buried with her first husband.

I think that must show that the first husband was held in very high esteem not only by his widow but also her second husband.

Pinetree