British Cemetery and Cremation Records from Deceased Online

This week Deceased Online adds burial records for the magnificent  Highgate Cemetery in north London   We are very excited to announce the release of records for Highgate Cemetery , one of London’s 'Magnificent Seven'. A total of 160,000 records have been uploaded to the database  of this significant collection, which dates from 1839 to 2010. They include coverage of the first three decades: 1840 to the early 1870s, with a gap in the records from 1863 to 1865. Highgate’s original burial registers are held at the cemetery itself and at Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre in Holborn but are available online only through   Deceased Online .  Pages from the Highgate Cemetery Register showing burials from 1839-1843 History Like the other ‘Magnificent Seven’ cemeteries, Highgate Cemetery is world-renowned, contains hundreds of notable burials, has several listed monuments, and provides a haven to inner-city wildlife. EnglishHeritag...

Deceased Online this week launches a new collection from the beautiful and historic city of Bath  Panoramic view of the Royal Crescent in Bath (  Photo by David Iliff. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0) The underground thermal spa waters of Bath have attracted visitors across the centuries, from the Romans, who named the city Aquae Sulis , to the Georgians and thousands of tourists who continue to throng there in the 21st century. It was the Georgians we have to thank for much of the magnificent architecture in the city today. Notably, John Wood the Elder , who was responsible for streets and buildings such as the Circus, and his son, John Wood the Younger , who designed the magnificent Royal Crescent (see above), which was built between 1767 and 1774, as well as the  notorious Assembly Rooms , visited by such Regency characters as Beau Nash. The celebrated Georgian author, Jane Austen , is credited with much of the interest in the city from literary visitors. The only U...

This week we welcome a post by Society of Genealogists’ trustee, Amelia Bennett, who was delighted to solve her own family’s mystery in Deceased Online’s Southwark Collection. Nunhead Cemetery My 2 x great grandmother Caroline Lageu was adopted in 1873, when she was 13 years old, by Alfred Strivens Hudson and his wife Ann . Her biological parents had died tragically young after falling on hard times. Caroline’s mother, Caroline Lageu senior, died of consumption in 1869.   Her husband, Thomas’ luck was dropping even before then, having started at a pub just off the Strand, then one on King Street (now Kingly Street between Regent Street & Carnaby Street), then out to Walworth, and finally ended up at a pub on Well Street, Hackney in east London. I had searched for some time for the burials of Caroline’s biological parents’ (my 3x great grandparents), but found nothing. The search was complicated by the fact that Lageu is such an unusual surname that it is almost...

Last week, the life of a Camberwell war hero, firefighter and community activist was celebrated with the unveiling of a blue plaque. Deceased Online is proud to hold the cremation record of George A. Roberts as part of its Southwark Collection. The new plaque dedicated to George A. Roberts. (credit: @heritagemonster on Twitter) In 2015, the  Southwark Heritage Association  asked for members of the public to vote on who should win that year's  Southwark Blue Plaque  for their contribution to the London borough. Sergeant George Arthur Roberts was the first nominee in the contest. Having won the award, George's plaque was unveiled at at a ceremony on Sunday 11 September 2016 at his former home in Warner Road, Camberwell under the watchful eyes of a guard of honour from London Fire Brigade. Also present was Tedwin Herbert, the Acting High Commissioner for Trinidad and Tobago. Portrait of George A. Roberts by Norman Hepple Described by renowned historian Steph...

This week, children from across England and Wales returned to school. Scottish children went back a few weeks ago. And soon, thousands of older students will be heading off to colleges and universities. With the new academic term underway, this week's post looks at notable contributors to British education. King's College Chapel, Cambridge (By Andrew Dunn - http://www.andrewdunnphoto.com/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1340715) The city of Cambridge in East Anglia is famed worldwide for its contribution to academia and the advancement of education at all levels. Burial and cremation records from the city have been in our database for a number of years.  Deceased Online's Cambridge City Council Collection includes: Cambridge City Crematorium. Huntingdon Road, Girton, Cambridge CB3 0JJ (from 1938; no addresses or places of death are revealed on records from the past 13 years) Newmarket Road Cemetery (Cambridge City Cemetery), Newmarket...

This week, I am delighted to introduce a guest blog by actor, Paul Rider, who, when using the Deceased Online database to  search for his great grandfather's burial record, chanced upon his great aunts' entries too . Paul Rider is an actor well known for both Shakespearean stage roles (including at London's Globe Theatre) and to a wide range of radio and TV appearances including Doc Martin, Eastenders and French and Saunders. Although he now lives in South London, he hails from the West Midlands and has been fascinated by researching his family history. He contacted us recently to tell us how, after three decades of searching, he made some great personal family history discoveries through the records on www.deceasedonline.com . Here's Paul's story: For some time I'd been researching my family and in particular looking for the grave of my great grandfather, Richard William Rider . I’d examined birth, marriage and death registers when they only existe...

Whether you love or loathe sport, it's difficult to escape the excitement of this year's Olympic games. In this week's post, I look into the Deceased Online database at some of the athletes of the past and their very different experiences of sporting life from those competing at Rio 2016. The Olympics is all about breaking boundaries, and pushing faster, higher, stronger as captured in its Latin motto, Citius, altius, fortius. This year's games broke records before it began with Rio de Janeiro being the first South American city to host the tournament. British viewers have so far delighted in the medal successes of swimmers Adam Peaty and Jazz Carlin, divers Tom Daley and Dan Goodfellow, and "trap" shooter, Edward Ling. In the wake of London 2012, I blogged about a couple of Scottish Olympians in the Deceased Online database . As the number of collections has increased over the past four years, more Olympians have appeared. Close up of the entry for E...

Next week sees the celebration of the UN's International Day of Friendship. In this week's blog, I reflect the importance of friendship by looking at some of the ways friend remember each other after death. The United Nations (UN) proclaimed the International Day of Friendship in 2011, aiming to celebrate the role friendship between people, countries, cultures and individuals can play in leading to peace. The UN encourages governments to mark the day annually on the 30th July with events and initiatives that contribute to international efforts in mutual understanding and reconciliation. As family historians, we often focus more on biological relationships than on friendships. However, our friends play a big part in our lives and some of our ancestors had companions who were more important to them than family. One problem when researching friendship in our families' pasts is that those relationships are not always recorded. There may be a reference to a friend in a will o...