British Cemetery and Cremation Records from Deceased Online

This week, Deceased Online adds to its Lewisham Collection with records from Ladywell Cemetery. Dating from 1858, the cemetery's registers should prove interesting for anyone with 19th or 20th century connections to South East London. Read on to discover the interesting entries I found while exploring the Ladywell records.    Ladywell Cemeter y was opened in 1858 as "Lewisham Cemetery" by Lewisham Burial Board. Today, the cemetery's official address is Ladywell Road, Ladywell Se13 7hy . Confusingly, Brockley Cemetery was laid out two months earlier in an adjacent plot, but by Deptford Burial Board. Today, Brockley and Ladywell Cemeteries are closely linked, but until 1948 they were divided by a low wall. Today this can still be identified by a bank. In 1965, with changes in London's local government, both cemeteries came under the control of the Borough of Lewisham.  Deceased Online will be adding Brockley records shortly. Both cemeteries are supported...

Coming soon to Deceased Online are the burial and cremation records of the London Borough of Lewisham in South East London. As a taster of some of the fascinating people to be found in the collection, this week I look at the short life of circus horse trainer, Helmuth Barth. Lewisham lies to the south of central London landmarks like Canary Wharf Everyone at Deceased Online is very excited about the forthcoming release of records for the inner London Borough of Lewisham . Burial and cre mation records will be added to the database throughout September and October this year. They include full digital scans of original burial and cremation registers ( computerised records from the late 1990s) , grave details including all those buried in each grave, and maps indicating the sections for each grave. T he Lewisham Collection includes records from: Brockley Cemetery (records from 1858 - 1999) Ladywell Cemetery (which adjoins Brockley, records from 1858 - 1999) Grove Park ...

This week, as Deceased Online adds records for four cemeteries managed by Wyre Council, I look at the oldest of these - the Victorian coastal cemetery of Fleetwood.    Fleetwood Cemetery I grew up in a village in the Wyre district , spending my early childhood roaming marshland reclaimed from the wild Irish Sea. The winds can be high on this part of the coast, with regular rainfall from its wide skies. This fairly remote, rural outcrop of Lancashire and overlooks the Pennines and the magnificent Lake District across Morecambe Bay.Its key towns are Cleveleys, Fleetwood, Garstang, Poulton-Le-Fylde and Thornton . Wyre is located in mid/north Lancashire, a short tram ride from bustling Blackpool. The council is named for the river which runs through the area. View of the coastline from Fleetwood Cemetery Since the history of Wyre is not widely known, I was delighted to discover that Deceased Online would be adding records from the region to its database . The a...

While the next cemetery data is being uploaded to the database, this week I thought I'd look into the fascinating concept of "taphophilia" - or a fondness for cemeteries.  Recently, I discovered that some of our Twitter followers describe themselves as "taphophiles" . I have heard a few terms to describe those of us who are interested in old cemeteries, but the word "taphophilia" seems one of the loveliest. The term comes from the Greek “taph” - for "tomb" - and “philia” - meaning "strong love or admiration". Although chiefly used to describe a love of cemeteries , the word is also associated with a fondness for funerals, epitaphs and the art of gravestones, monuments and tombs . Poets, novelists, lyricists and dramatists have long lauded the cemetery. Memorable literary scenes include Hamlet standing by the graveside with Yorrick's skull, the St Pancras gravediggers in A Tale of Two Cities, and the lines from The Sm...

This week Deceased Online uploaded a new collection for Camberwell Old and New Cemeteries. Inspired by a memorial in the New Cemetery, in this post I explore how the online database can help locate burial places of those interred in paupers' graves. Like me, you may have ancestors who were buried in common graves . These were often referred to as "paupers' graves" as they were the resting places of those whose loved ones could not afford to pay for a burial and headstone. Many had no loved ones at all.    Deceased Online this week added burial records for Camberwell Old Cemetery and Camberwell New Cemetery . Like Nunhead Cemetery , these burial grounds lies in the modern London Borough of Southwark . The use of Southwark place names has changed over the years. Parts of Camberwell on an 1881 census entry, for example, may be known as Peckham today.  Southwark was a highly populous area in the Victorian and early 20th centuries. The three cemeteries that are...

This week I catch up with Deceased Online's new collections and summarize what's currently available to help locate ancestors who died in London View of London from Greenwich Cemetery, one of the London cemeteries featured in the Deceased Online database After the 1830s, when my 3x great grandparents, Edward Barnes and Mary Ashley , arrived in the capital, hundreds of members of my family have been born in London, settled there or passed through. Millions of us around the world have at least one ancestor who died in London between the 18th century and today. Although most of Deceased Online 's London collections date from the 19th and 20th centuries, there are a number of records from the 18th century, including that of the Robinson Crusoe author Daniel Defoe , who was buried in Bunhill Hill Fields in 1731. Daniel Defoe was buried at Bunhill Fields in the heart of London Researching London ancestors is complicated by the changing nature of its administrative ...

Today Deceased Online launches the burial records for the Magnificent Cemetery of Nunhead in South London. Below I explore the history of the cemetery and highlight some of the notable burials in this new collection. Nunhead is one of London's Magnificent Seven Cemeteries that were laid out around the edge of the capital in the mid-19th century. Located in the populous London Borough of Southwark SE15 , in the words of the Friends of Nunhead Cemetery (FONC) , Nunhead is "the most attractive of the seven". As early as 1878, the writer and genealogist Edward Walford (1823-1897) was celebrating the beauty of the site as follows: Nunhead Cemetery, covering an area of about fifty acres, occupies the summit of some rising ground, whence a good view is obtained of the surrounding neighbourhood. The cemetery was consecrated by the Bishop of Winchester in 1840, and is beautifully laid out with gravel walks, and thickly planted with trees, shrubs, and flowers. The chapel...