Wicklow Cemeteries

[dermo]

My people all came from the Glen of Imaal - various townlands including Leitrim, Knocknamunnion, Colliga, Camara, Stranahely, and Coolmoney.  I have had little success with parish records tracing baptisms and marriages.  Dunlavin  is the relevant parish but the microfilmed records in the National Library are in poor condition, a lot is illegible.  Now I am wondering would cemeteries provide some information.   Therefore, I'm wondering what cemeteries would have served the Glen in the 19th century and are there any online sources of burial records or headstone inscriptions for those burial grounds.  Any information would be of interest.

Dermo

[aghadowey]

I spent hours organising the Resources in many of the Irish boards, including Wicklow 

At the top of this board you'll find a stickied post WICKLOW RESOURCES & LINKS
Reply #2 is Church records and gravestones which includes Dunlavin and other places in Wicklow.

Bear in mind that not everyone actually had headstones, not all headstones survive or are legible and most are not online. Also, many places do not have burial records so it can be difficult to find exactly who is buried in a particular place.

[dermo]

I checked out the Wicklow resources on this site.  The Dunlavin headstone transcriptions are all 20th century as far as I could see.

Dermo

[aghadowey]

Since the cemetery apparently opened in 1937 it's not surprising.

[dermo]

I guess that's why I need to find out what the relevant cemeteries were in the 19th century.

Dermo

[shanew147]

You could check Cantwell's in a library to see which graveyards in the area he surveyed. He did most of the readable headstones in the County.

There are maps of the graveyard locations at the beginning of each volume.

p.s. he only covered up to about 1880



Shane

[dermo]

I've seen Cantwell in the Pearse St Library.  At the time I thought Dunlavin was the cemetery I needed and, as far as I can recall, there wasn't a lot on that.  Now I know Dunlavin dates only from 1937, I will check out Cantwell again when next in Dublin to get a list of alternative cemeteries.  I suspect a visit or visits to the cemeteries in the Glen may be the only way to check.  Thanks for the suggestion.

Dermo

[shanew147]

If your ancestors were RC then it unlikely that there will be burial records - as these are not usually kept by in RC registers.

The headstone transcriptions are your best bet for locating an actual grave. But I would say that in my opinion the number of people represented headstones is nowhere near the number of people that would have been buried even over the last 150 years.

I have several lines in North Co. Wicklow, including about 5 generations and branches amounting to at least 60 people. I have located a grand total of 3 headstone with 6 names - two possible connections from the 1600s, and four names from the early 1900s. I know which graveyard the 'family plot' (from newspaper death notices) was in but there either was no headstone(s), or they dont survive. The family in question were reasonably well off



Shane

[dermo]

Thanks for that Shane, a little discouraging but probably realistic.  I'm running into the sand on my Wicklow relatives partly because of the poor quality of the microfilmed records (I supposed I should say, because of the poor state of the surviving registers).  I've tried the IFHF Wicklow records but found I was spending a lot for few results - their search engine does not yield enough information to make a probable choice so you end up spending money on records that turn out not to be relevant (am I the only one to think €5 per record is exorbitant?).  I think visiting the graveyards in search of headstones may be the only other option.

Dermo