Burial of different families

[Colohare01]

Would anyone know why an infant dying in 1874 aged 6 is buried in a grave with a totally different family. The first one of them in the grave was in 1898. TIA

[BumbleB]

Name and more information might help to clarify, as it sounds quite strange. I'm assuming a common grave, but 20+ year burial range!!!

[aghadowey]

Would anyone know why an infant dying in 1874 aged 6 is buried in a grave with a totally different family. The first one of them in the grave was in 1898. TIA

Difficult to be sure without a location but could Family A have buried a child there in 1874 but not used the plot (moved away or something) then 20 or so years later Family B purchased the plot and used it for their family?
Not sure how much information is available to you but what about the addresses? I have found a few burials in Belfast, Ireland where the only link with the 'odd burial' seems to be they all lived at the same address at different times.

[chris_49]

Celia found graves for me at Rake Lane Cemetery, Wallasey. There were a few cases of unrelated people being buried together, usually involving an infant. An economy measure?

[Tickettyboo]

Would anyone know why an infant dying in 1874 aged 6 is buried in a grave with a totally different family. The first one of them in the grave was in 1898. TIA

Many graves hold unrelated people, certainly for cemeteries a grave could be classed as 'public' - where the burial rights were not purchased and 'private' where an extra fee was paid for the right to have future burials in the same grave. Only private graves could have a headstone erected.

Perhaps the family couldn't afford to purchase the burial rights, so the child would have been buried in a grave that had space.

Are you saying this child was the first burial in that grave and subsequently x number of family members for an unrelated (to the child) family were buried there?

Without knowing which cemetery/grave you are talking about its difficult to try to find burial/ graves registers to check if the grave was ever actually purchased.

I am unsure of the dates this applied but have been told that at one time the burial laws stated that for public graves at least a 14 year interval between successive burials  was required unless the subsequent burial was for someone from the same family.

Boo

[Annie65115]

It seems quite common to me that unrelated people are buried in the same grave. But have you double checked that there really is no family connection? Just because the surname is different it doesn’t exclude that possibility.

[Colohare01]

Thanks for all the replies guys ..this is a grave in glasnevin cemetery in Dublin Ireland. I have checked addresses and they weren’t living at same address. I have checked whether related and they don’t seem to be. So I would say it was a case of public grave that was never purchased. Thank you all for your input.