Questions about how UK cemeteries work.

[medpat]

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.

[iluleah]

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

 

[Tonykelly]

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

[steadyrollingman]

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.

[Tonykelly]

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.

[rdkmt]

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.

[Glen in Tinsel Kni]

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.

[Skoosh]

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!

Bests,
Skoosh.

[Guy Etchells]

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