Epitaphs in Cemeteries

This week we look at the last words that remember our ancestors by examining epitaphs in burial grounds.

The grave of In Loving Memory of Alice Freestone in Alby (St Ethelbert) Churchyard, Norfolk. Her epitaph describes her as, "A Dear Wife and Mother" and "Worthy of Remembrance".

According to the Oxford Dictionary, epitaphs are, "words that are written or said about a dead person, especially words on a gravestone."

The Deceased Online website includes photographs of graves and memorials, as well as digital scans of cremation and burial registers.

Photographs, such as those from our Norfolk Collection, can give you an insight into the character of the deceased. They also provide us with essential genealogical information, such as the names of relatives.

Among our records are some fascinating memorials and epitaphs.

The Londonist website wrote an interesting post on Brompton Cemetery, whose burial registers you can search in our database.

The headstone of Percy Lambert (1881-1913) in Brompton Cemetery, London.

The article highlighted the epitaph of Percy Lambert, "the first person to drive 100 miles in an hour, whose headstone bears the marvellously Edwardian inscription: 'A modest friend, a fine gentleman and a

thorough sportsman'."

Above is the burial register entry for Percy Lambert in the Deceased Online database and his index entry is below.

last name

LAMBERT

first names

PERCY EDGAR

burial date

04 November 1913

location

Brompton Cemetery (Kensington And Chelsea)

Do any of your ancestors have memorable epitaphs? We would love to hear about them. Do let us know about them in the Comments Box below or on our Facebook and Twitter pages.

Comments

London's Spa Fields

Deceased Online has just uploaded around 114,000 burial records from Spa Fields in the modern London borough of Islington Spa Fields today, with the Church of Our Most Holy Redeemer in the background Spa Fields Burial Ground became notorious in the 19th century for its overcrowded and insanitary conditions. Located in the parish of St James, Clerkenwell, the grave yard was not far from the ever-increasing City of London. Spa Fields was known also as Clerkenwell Fields and Ducking-pond Fields in the late 18th century, hinting at a dark side to what was then a summer evening resort for north Londoners. What would become a cemetery was a ducking pond in the rural grounds of a Spa Fields public house. It was here in 1683 that six children were drowned while playing on the ice. In his History of Clerkenwell (1865) William J. Pinks wrote that visitors, "came hither to witness the rude sports that were in vogue a century ago, such as duck-hunting, prize-fighting, bull-baiting...

New Maps Online for St Peter's Cemetery and Churchyard

New data for Scotland will be appearing on Deceased Online over the next couple of weeks. Here we give you an insight into our holdings on the cemeteries of Aberdeen. The ‘Granite City’, as Scotland's third largest city is known, features strongly in the Deceased Online database . You can search around 248,000 records from nine cemeteries and burial grounds, including St Nicholas Churchyard, Trinity Churchyard, Nigg Cemetery, John Knox Churchyard, St Peter's Cemetery - linked with Spital Churchyard, St Clement's Churchyard, Old Machar Churchyard, Grove Cemetery and Nellfield Cemetery. We have just added detailed grave location maps of Spitak (aka St Peter’s) Churchyard and St Peter’s Cemetery. Located in the north of the city, these two cemeteries form one vast graveyard. The Deceased Online database contains registers, which date from 1767, for over 160,000 burials. Besides the registers are the Dues Books. For the earliest dates these cover the date of burial...

All Kensal Green Cemetery Records Available

All records for Kensal Green Cemetery and West London Crematorium are now available to search on the database From this week, all 330,000 records for Kensal Green Cenetery and West London Crematorium can be searched on Deceased Online . They include all burial and cremation records from 1833 to 2010. This release heralds the exclusive digitisation of records on the site from two of the 'Magnificent Seven' cemeteries. And we have more to come soon. Watch this space! Among the famous names included in this latest release of records is the iconic sixties and seventies designer, Ossie Clark (1942-1996) . Immortalized in the 1971 painting (above), Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy , by his friend, David Hockney, Clark dressed Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithfull, Liza Minnelli and the Beatles. His clothes are still highly sought after, with his vintage designs being worn by Kate Moss and other modern trend-setters. Clark's style continues to influence designers sich as Anna Sui, C...

British Cemetery and Cremation Records from Deceased Online

Search This Blog