British Cemetery and Cremation Records from Deceased Online

This week's blog celebrates police ancestors with today (29 September 2017) being the 188th anniversary of the founding of London's Metropolitan Police On 29 September 1829, 188 years ago to the day, the Metropolitan Police of London (later also known as the Met) was founded. Although this was first professional police force in England, there had been local constables throughout the 18th century. From the 1730s, some towns and cities paid for watchmen or constables to patrol the streets at night. In 1749, Henry Fielding set up the Bow Street Runners and in 1763, his brother, Sir John Fielding brought in the Bow Street Horse Patrol. A Peeler circa 1850s (c) Unknown   -   http://www.victorianstrollers.co.uk/stevesuniforms/peeler/peeler1.jpg Outside of London, the first professional police force in Britain, the City of Glasgow Police, was established in 1800. Railway police began in 1830 with the creation of Liverpool and Manchester Railway's own force. But London...

In honour of next week's Nantwich Food Festival and the recent upload of Nantwich Cemetery records to the Deceased Online database, this week's blog looks at the surprising salty past of this historic Cheshire market town  From 1st to 3rd September 2017, the annual  Nantwich Food Festival  will be held entirely in the town centre among one of the county's largest collection of historical buildings. Over 200 exhibitors, demonstrators and entertainers will be based around the Elizabethan, Georgia and Victorian buildings against the backdrop of the medieval 14th century St Mary's Church. The organisers expect around 40,000 visitors. Nantwich or Shrewbridge Lake, a salt water lake just outside Nantwich, Cheshire, UK (Wikimedia Commons) Nantwich has notable Roman history and was known in the medieval period as 'Wich Malbanc'. Being a significant settlement near the Welsh border, Nantwich was also known by the old Welsh Hellath Wen.  In the 18th centur...

This week I look deeper into Deceased Online's latest release of the Cheshire East Collection (1861-2015), exploring why Crewe's history lies at the heart of England's railway past. As I revealed in last week's post, the Cheshire East Collection includes the records of six cemeteries and crematoria in the Crewe area of the county.. There are now  130,000 records from the  Crewe  office  available on  www.deceasedonline.com . The oldest are for the cemeteries of Coppenhall (dating from 1861), Nantwich (1870) and Crewe (1872). Anyone with ancestors buried at Nantwich should be aware that some of the older entries in the original registers of this cemetery are duplicates, for which correct grave details may be unobtainable.   The Cheshire East records comprise digital scans of all burial registers or cremation indexes and grave details for each of the graves and their occupants. Records for the Macclesfield area have been digitised and will be r...

More records for county of  Cheshire as Cheshire East Collection (1861-2015) is added to the Deceased Online database. Coppenhall Cemetery, Cheshire As someone who grew in Lancashire, I am delighted that Deceased Online has extended its North West England collection with the addition of burial and cremation records from neighbouring  Cheshire East .  Deceased Online  has recently digitised burial and cremation data for the south part of the Cheshire East Council area, managed by Orbitas   Bereavement Services. This covers the following sites:  Congleton Cemetery (500 records) 2004 - 2015 Coppenhall Cemetery (10,400 records) 1861 - 2015 Crewe Cemetery (51,750 records) 1872 - 2015 Nantwich Cemetery (11,150 records) 1870 - 2015 Sandbach Cemetery (3,950 records) 1935 - 2015 Weston Cemetery (1,150 records) 1908 - 2015 Crewe Crematorium (52,100 records) 1937 - 2009 (+ 1 record from 1945) History The oldest records in this collection com...

This week is International Nurses Day and to mark the occasion, this post looks at some of the military nurses we have found in the Deceased Online collections Florence Nightingale (middle) in 1886 with her graduating  class of nurses  from  St Thomas'  outside  Claydon House , Buckinghamshire Friday 12 May 2017 is International Nurses Day . This celebration of nurses' contributions to our society has been marked every year since 1965 by the International Council of Nurses (ICN) . In 1974 the Council agreed that the event should fall annually on 12 May - the birthday of the creator of formal modern nursing, Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) . Nightingale rose to prominence during the Crimean War of 1854-6 when she ran the Barrack Hospital in Scutari (in modern Turkey ) . Although Nightingale is buried in the rural churchyard of St Margaret of Antioch in East Wellow, Hampshire , many of her contemporaries can be found in urban cemeteries, The only know...

With the recent birthday celebrations of the Queen, it feels timely to highlight some of the royal records in the Deceased Online collections The Queen, pictured in 2015 (Wikipedia) Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her 91st birthday on 21 April 2017. Last year, she became the longest-reigning monarch in British history and on the 29 November 2016, she and Prince Philip celebrated 69 years of marriage. Not to be outdone, younger members of the Royal Family have also been in the news recently. Prince Harry , along with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge , have been speaking out about the need for improved mental health awareness and services as part of the Heads Together campaign. Notably, last week, Prince Harry spoke at length publicly for the first time about the tragic death in 1997 of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales . The burial place of Katharine of Aragon at Peterborough Cathedral The oldest royal record in the Deceased Online database is from Peterborough Cathedral ...

Thank you to all those who visited the Deceased Online team at last week's Who Do You Think You Are? Live in Birmingham Jamie and the team stayed busy over the three days of this year's show Jamie and the team from  Deceased Onli ne  are all back home now, resting their feet after a fun few days in   Birmingham's NEC   at  Who Do You Think You Are? Live . As usual, our stand (198) saw a constant flow of visitors keen to find their ancestors in the Deceased Online database . We love meeting database users and would like to thank everyone who dropped by to see us on Thursday 6th, Friday 7th and Saturday 8th April. We had a hectic but happy three days helping countless family historians with their brickwalls. Across the arena, there were loads of great bargains and special offers unique to the show. Deceased Online was no exception and we were delighted that so many of you were keen to take up our special WDYTYA? Live offer of a 6 month subscription for jus...