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Each week I end my blog post by asking readers to contact the Deceased Online team, saying that we love to hear from you. We really do and we very much appreciate all the emails, Facebook messages, Tweets, and blog comments that you send us. This week, I thought I'd share some of the inspirational messages we have received

The gateway to Plumstead Cemetery in the Royal Borough of Greenwich
A couple of weeks ago on this blog I mentioned a recent message from Brenda Moir Shout, who lives far from the UK in the Namibian desert. Brenda contacted me about the joint headstone of her great grandfather, Henry John Carlisle (1885-1915), and his son, Arthur Dowley Carlisle (died 16 July 1916 at Delville Wood), that she knew stands in Plumstead Cemetery. I recommended Brenda search the records on the Deceased Online database so that she could find the full burial details and grave location map of her family's headstone. A few months later, Brenda wrote again to tell me that not only had she found the records on Deceased Online but she had then travelled from Africa to Woolwich and visited Plumstead Cemetery. Thanks to the map, she was able to find the headstone of her ancestors who died nearly a century ago. 
St Pancras and Islington Cemetery, London

Further thanks go to J. & B. Barnes, who wrote to us to say, "We have been searching for my husbands gt grandmother for around 10 years. Finally with the cemetery records for London we found her death managed to get her death certificate and find where she is buried. Thank you deceased online. It wouldn't have been possible without you."
Headstone of the writer, J. M Barrie, at Kirriemuir, Scotland
And it was great to hear from Sally Woods across the Atlantic Ocean in Hopewell Junction, New York, USA, who wrote:

We've been the lucky recipients of your work. Our Uncle's dream was to return to Scotland to place a stone on the graves of his two younger brothers who died before the family immigrated to the US. Recently I used your site and found to my absolute amazement the burial information and map for the site. There was also a great grandmother in the grave. Because of your work we have been able to trace many more ancestors.

A recent trip to Carnoustie allowed us to follow up by checking the Baptismal and Death records at the Church of the Holy Rood. Our only problem is that even with the grave map, we are unable to absolutely confirm the exaction location of the grave because we are unsure how those plots are laid out. Many of the graves are unmarked and the shape of the cemetery itself is round so the beginning of the rows is unclear and counting the exact graves is difficult. I am hopeful that in time I will be able to identify the exact location. We are going to install a stone on the site that we feel is the correct one.

Thanks for all your work. We are fortunate to have it . . . your work has been invaluable.  I haven't been able to find comparable information on any other site.  I am going to continue to work from the States, but anticipate returning soon. I am sure that your website will become more and more exciting as you progress.

Thank you very much, Sally! You'll be pleased to learn that we are adding some very exciting records next week. 

We also receive feedback via our social media sites, Twitter and Facebook, where we keep users updated of our latest collections and events. For those who aren't familiar with our social network pages, they look like this:
Above is our Facebook page, on which we post updates and images of the cemeteries, gravestones and burial records in our collections. As you can see from this example, Facebook users can post on our wall and comment on posts, asking questions or adding useful points of information.

Our Twitter account looks like this:
We use Twitter to post brief updates (up to 140 characters) and to write quick replies to questions or share information.

If you have a Facebook or Twitter account, please do 'like' and 'follow' us, and write your comments on our pages!

Warm thanks go to our Facebook friends, Barbara Whewell Lawrence and Susan Riley, for their kind posts on our wall this autumn:


I shall end this week's post by saying a huge thank you to all those who contact us. It's wonderful to know that all the hard work put in by the Deceased Online team is appreciated and that it helps so many of you with your family history research. 
As always, I must add that if you haven't yet contacted us, please do get in touch and tell us about your experiences on the database or of visiting family graves!

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