British Cemetery and Cremation Records from Deceased Online

Modern burial ideas are drawing on experiences of the past On 16 October 2018, the Chief Executive of the  Friends of Highgate Cemetery 's Dr Ian Dungavell was interviewed on  BBC Radio London's Vanessa Feltz programme  to discuss ideas to create more burial space. The programme discussed how to find room for future generations of Londoners while maintaining all that is special about the cemetery. Surprisingly, this is not a new concept. Before the 19th century, particularly during the medieval period, social norms allowed for  old graves to be exhumed in order that space would be freed for new burials. The remains were transferred to charnel houses (bone stores). Examples of these can be found across the country, such as in Spitalfields, London .  The news was also reported in The Telegraph  with a warning that there will be no space for full-sized graves (and thus coffin burials) by 2024. Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust have completed a...

This week, Deceased Online expands its Nottingham Collection with the addition of records from the early Victorian cemetery, Nottingham General. Enter Nottingham's General Cemetery from Canning Terrace and be prepared to step back in time to the late 19th century. Like many of the Victorian cemeteries in the Deceased Online collections, Nottingham General was designed to take the burden from parish churches whose graveyards had become overcrowded. Also, like many other Victorian cemeteries, this was administered by a newly-formed body, the Nottingham General Cemetery Company (1836) . The Grade II listed gatehouse , the chapel and the adjacent almshouses were built between 1836 and 1838 by S. S. Rawlinson . Burial registers were kept from the opening date of cemetery in 1838. Concerns were raised in the 1920s that this municipal cemetery was now overcrowded and from 1929 the cemetery was closed to new burials other than those who owned burial rights. Headstones in ...

For many of us, Christmas is a time of family, feasting and celebration. But f or the working classes of the late 18th and early 19th century, Christmas Day was regarded as a rare break fro m daily toil . Nevertheless, s ome Georgians and Victorians were obliged to continue working in the holidays. Among them were priests, cemetery staff and gravediggers who overs aw Christmas burials.  It faded on the crowing of the cock. Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long. And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad. The nights are wholesome. Then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallowed and so gracious is that time. Marcellus...

As the local council officially announces the launch of our Lincoln Collection, I look back at the social changes that led to the opening of the city's first cemetery in 1856. The Lincoln Collection on Deceased Online incorporates over 140,000 records dating back to the 1850s. Of the five cemeteries in the collection, three - Canwick Road, Eastgate, and Newport - date from 1856. But Lincoln's councillors had identified a need for a cemetery almost decade earlier. Gravestones in Lincoln's first cemetery at Canwick Road On the 12th November 1846, the Lincolnshire Chronicle reported that the Cemetery Committee worried that: "it appeared to be an impossibility to form a Cemetery in Lincoln at present, in consequence of the expense and trouble which would arise. Instead the Council proposed to focus on clearing the "nuisances now existing in the town" and to pass a bill for ""sanatory [sic] improvement".  One of the key difficultie...

This week the Deceased Online database adds burial records for two more Hertfordshire cemeteries. In this post, I look at these new registers as well as those of other burial grounds in the Hertfordshire Collection.   Deceased Online 's exclusive Hertfordshire Collection now includes ten cemeteries, dating back to 1801. Across the ten cemeteries there are over 200,000 records for more than 90,000 individual names and burials. The Hertfordshire records can be found on the website in the "East of England" region drop-down box. Hertfordshire borders north London and you may find, like me, that your Hertfordshire ancestors travelled back and forth to work in the capital.  Row of trees at Hatfield Hyde Cemetery (c) Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council The latest additions are Welwyn Hatfield Lawn and Hatfield Hyde Cemeteries . Their records of original registers, grave details and cemetery section maps come from Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council . The registers for Hat...

Look out for thousands more burial records from Deceased Online's Aberdeenshire Collection  By the end of Friday 2nd May, the Deceased Online database will hold over 75,000 burial records from Aberdeenshire in North East Scotland. All the burial grounds from this collection are managed by Aberdeenshire Council .  The magnificent 17th century Craigievar Castle lies close to the village of Alford, which features in the latest release Aberdeenshire is a large county, covering 8% of Scotland's land mass, and is steeped in history. The parishes covered in the new release are predominantly rural, with a number, such as Alford, Udny and Cluny, lying in the shadows of great castles. Unfortunately, neighbouring Towie Castle now lies in ruins. Auchindoir, which features in the latest records, takes its name from the Gaelic Auehindoir , or 'field of the chase'. This is associated with the flight of Macbeth's successor, Lulach, who is believed to have run thr...

Records for Hale (Altrincham) and Stretford Cemeteries are now online This week at Deceased Online we began adding burial records for Trafford Council in Greater Manchester. T rafford is the second council in Greater Manchester to add records to our website – the first being Bolton. You can read more about Bolton cemeteries here .    Over the next few weeks, Deceased Online will feature records for nearly 300,000 burials and cremations from Trafford’s seven boroughs: Altrincham, Bowdon, Bucklow, Hale, Sale, Stretford and Urmston. Outside Manchester, Trafford is probably best known as the home of two of England’s most historic sporting venues: Manchester United’s home ground of Old Trafford, and Lancashire Cricket Club’s Old Trafford cricket ground. I grew up in Lancashire and watched my first game of county cricket at Old Trafford, when West Indian legend Clive Lloyd wowed the crowd by hitting a six into the members’ car park. Emirates Old Trafford -...