RootsChat.Com
England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Hampshire & Isle of Wight => Topic started by: lolmac3 on Wednesday 06 November 13 10:49 GMT (UK)
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I have been doing my family tree for over 20 years now.
My Grandfathers family have been in Fordingbridge for over 400 years, and over the years have married into other families in the town, so looking at the parish records, on each page is about 4 or 5 of my relatives due to the fact I am probably related to most of the town one way or another.
Recently I took a trip there and was really excited to go to Fordingbridge church, thinking that every other gravestone would be a family member. Imagine my horror to find half a dozen gravestones in the church cementry! I spoke to the warden who said that in 1900 the churchyard was full up so they purchased a field on the outskirts of town to bury people in, fair enough, but they flattened the existing gravesyard! and to add insult to injury they put a few headstones around the church wall but the rest they made a path out of!
Has anyone else heard of this happening? I am still furious that a church could do this to the headstones!
Lorraine
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A similar thing has happened to my Grandparents graves (this happened in 1980's -so not that long ago) the graveyard was across the road from the Church and was to be sold for road widening - which never happened- some of the headstones were placed around the Church wall - some have fallen face down and cannot be lifted & some have been broken and disposed of! - and my 3x gt Granddad is now buried underneath the Church car park!!!!
The problem is no one updates details of who is "responsible" for the grave (I am guilty of this) -so apart from a notice in the paper not much can be done to find family when this occurs -and ownership of the grave does not mean you own the ground !
It seems to me there's no such thing as a final resting place!!!
Suz
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It is much more common than you might think. Some churchyards are cleared completely of headstones, not even made into a path. St Philips & St Jacob in Bristol - I seem to remember that the churchyard there is headstone-less - many of them have been used as flagstones for the paths. Some might be put against the boundary wall (St Mary in Portsea is one example).
And if you think about it, since headstones are a relatively recent innovation for the common folk, and churchyards have been receiving burials for a lot longer, many newer graves may well lie on top of unmarked - and much older - graves. Dare I also mention the king in the car park - no-one is safe :-\
Nell
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as part of my dumb question session i am having , on Fordingbridge......>
did you ask if they have done a transcription list of the headstones before they bulldozed the kajesus out of the cemetery...?
:)