British Cemetery and Cremation Records from Deceased Online

This week I summarize the full collection of burial and cremation records on Deceased Online from across the North West England Dark clouds gather over the headstones of Fleetwood Cemetery, Lancashire Since July 2017, when Deceased Online added burial and cremation records from the council of Cheshire East, the collection of records from across the modern counties of Cheshire, Lancashire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester and Merseyside has been one of the largest on the website. North West England is one of nine official regions of the country. For anyone who has missed all the updates on collections from these areas, or if you just need to be clear on what is now available to search online, below is the full list. Boundary changes Be aware that the modern counties have only existed in their current form since  1974. In that year boundary changes created the metropolitan counties of Merseyside (including Liverpool) and Greater Manchester (including the city of Manchester). Th...

This week I look at the records for the county in which I grew up and summarize what you can find on Deceased Online to aid your search for ancestors who died in Lancashire Administ rative map of the ancient county of Lancashire in 1832. Showing Hundreds, Parishes and Boroughs. Source data on parish boundaries - Kain, R.J.P., and Oliver, R.R. (2001) "Historic parishes of England and Wales: Electronic Map - Gazetteer - Metadata", Colchester: History Data Service.  ISBN 0 9540032 0 9 . Source data for Boroughs: H.M.S.O. Boundary Commission Report 1832 (courtesy of www.visionofbritain.org). Lancashire is a fairly young county in England, dating from 1182. Farming dominated life in the county in the medieval and early modern periods, although in 1612 the area became notorious for the trials of the Pendle witches, The trials of twelve women accused of witchcraft in the Pendle Hill region are well recorded. Eventually, the twelve were charged with the murder of ten people by ...

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...

Blackburn Old Cemetery opened on 1st July 1857. Since then thousands have been buried in its hilly grounds overlooking the town of Blackburn. This week I highlight some of the remarkable, altruistic and notorious individuals whose burial entries can be found in the new Blackburn and Darwen Collection in the Deceased Online database. The Anglican Chapel, Blackburn Cemetery 19th century (reproduced with kind permission of the Friends of Blackburn Old Cemetery) Elizabeth Ann Lewis (1849-1924) Elizabeth Ann Lewis was born in Shropshire in 1849 to farm labourer George Lewis and his wife, Ann. In 1867, she married Thomas Lewis, a coach builder from Cheshire. The couple settled in Blackburn, where Elizabeth Ann was horrified by the scale of alcohol addiction and public drunkenness. Celebrated as the "Temperance Queen" or "Drunkard's Friend", Lewis dedicated her life to improving conditions for the working classes. She challenged the town's 600 licensed prem...