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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Bedfordshire => Topic started by: eli2 on Sunday 29 March 15 13:17 BST (UK)
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(sorry for my english, english is not my first language).
Hi. I don't know if this is a good place to ask this question. I'm looking for a grave from one person. His name is STEFAN SWIDER, he died in Luton in March 1956 and was born in 1914. He is a part of my family. I have seen a photo with this grave (probably from 60s or 70s) and based on that I think that this grave is (or was) located in General Cemetery in Luton (I'm not 100% sure, but it looks like this cemetery). Ahead of this grave i have seen monument of St Mary which was in my opinion part of this grave.
My question is: is any chance to find out if this grave is still there? I'm not from UK. It is possible that the grave was removed? (sorry I don't know procedures in UK)
Edit: I'm talking about cemetery on Rothesay Road
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Hi eli2
Welcome to Rootschat ;D
The contact details for the local authority who looks after the cemetery are here
http://www.luton.gov.uk/Community_and_living/Luton%20Register%20Office%20%28Registration%20Service%29/Registration_of_deaths/Burial/Pages/Burial_grave%20details.aspx
I would send them an email first with his name and age and birth date and last known address. Do you have his actual date of death or are you quoting the entry from the death index? A death registered in March quarter 1956 could have happened in January, February or March.
Let us know what they tell you.
Dawn
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Thank you very much :) I sent them an e-mail. Date of death (March 1956) is from the grave, from headstone. We will see if i get the reply, I wait few days and if not I think I will call them.
I have another question. I know that this member of my family was a catholic and from what I know after quick research on this forum that this cemetery in Luton is not really a catholic cemetery. It is possible in UK to have a grave with monument with St Mary ahead of the grave if the cemetery is not catholic? As I said before I'm not really sure If this is exactly this cemetery and that is why I asked that question.
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Most municipal cemeteries have sections for different religions. He may well be in a Catholic section.
Most cemeteries now have regulations as to the maximum size a monument can be. In some cemeteries the older monuments can be huge and dangerous if they fall over because there is no-one to maintain them. St Mary, angels, sleeping cherubs, urns, books; there are many styles of monument in cemeteries here.
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Hello Eli2
I do know of this cemetery and have attended burials there of both Catholics and non Catholics.
There are also graves there for those of the Jewish faith and for those who have no faith.
I am not aware of any specific Catholic cemetery in Luton
Please let us know what response you receive.
LD
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Hello again
Just to add that the cemetery is not in sections as such in that Catholic graves maybe alongside non Catholic ones and so on.
I think the cemetery was opened in the 1850's in response to a cholera epidemic.
I was last there about 2 years ago and it looked very full.
LD
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Thank you very much for all your answers :) I'm still waiting for response from the cemetery.
Meanwhile as I'm not sure if this grave is in General Cemetery in Luton, I decided to send emails to RC parishes in Luton. I sent to:
-RC Parish of The Holy Family and St John the Apostle
-St Martin de Porres Catholic Church
-Holy Ghost RC Parish
I don't know if they can help me...Do you think that parishes can have some data about place of the grave?
Edit: and I sent also to:
-Our Lady Help of Christians
-Sacred Heart of Jesus
-St Joseph
-St Margaret of Scotland
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Hello Eli2
Do you have an address for Stefan at the time of his death?
If so, could you PM it to me?
We may then be able to find out at which Church the funeral took place.
LD
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Unfortunately we don't know the address. We know literally nothing, only date of death and place of death. He was the only member of our family who was in Luton and this part of our family which may know something more is sadly dead.
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Ok - I thought it may have speeded things up a bit
LD
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Yes, thank you very much for all your help :) I have an answer from Holy Ghost Parish - it's not there. Six to go :)
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I received a lot of emails from parishes in Luton last days with no informations about Stefan. But one parish told me that I shoud also ask St Mary parish in Dunstable and also cemetery in Dunstable and it seems that they were right. Cemetery in Dunstable gave me informations that they have a record. It was not Stefan Swider, but Stefan Sinder, who was buried in 1956 (9th February). Initially I thought this is different person, because of different surname and month but:
-based on FreeBMD database, there is no Sinder who died in UK in 1956
-I have seen photo with grave and I thought it was March headstone (number looked like '3'), but quality of the photo and espiecially distance from headstone can suggest that it could be '2').
Especially that there is no Sinder who died in UK in 1956, I'm rather sure that this is the same person who I'm looking for :) They also informed me where he was buried ( " in plot no: RC 41." - I don't have cemetery map with sections but this is important information) and gave me his last address (and this is Luton so correct).
I did a terrible job to trying to locate this grave on Dunstable Cemetery on West Road on bing maps (google maps were too poor). I know that it sounds unreal but I think I located this grave on bing maps. Of course it's from distance and quality isn't very good but I believe it's not my imagination. As grave was very original, headstone was like a cube with St Mary ahead of this
headstone so it was not impossible as there were not many graves like this. I also know that behind this grave, few rows later were headstones with a lot of crossess and on bing map I located this place too and place of Stefan's grave is exactly in perfect place in relation to this graves with crossess. There were also houses with chimneys in the middle of the house behind the cemetery and the same houses with chmineys I see on bing maps (place called Meadway). I checked date on bing maps and if date is correct this map was created October 2011, so this grave was still there in 2011.
The amount of information I got is amazing, it's beyond my imagination. I know his last address now (we checked this house later on Google Street View - it's great). I know where was the funeral (St Mary Dunstable), where his grave is (Dunstable Cemetery, plot RC41), I was able to locate this cemetery on bing maps and I found grave with looks exactly like this, and the other graves seen on my old photo from 60s looks the same. I never expected that I will get so many informations.
So thank you very, very much to all people in this thread, to all parishes and cemeteries in Luton, and especially to St Mary Dunstable parish and Dunstable Cemetery.
I did this for my father, who is 73. I don't know so many words in English to explain how happy he was when I told him about this.
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That is brilliant news, I'm pleased that you managed to find the grave.
Now that you have a grave and the plot number, there may be someone on here who lives near there and who would be willing to take a close up photograph of it for you. You never know, you'd be suprised what can happen on Rootschat.
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Will try & get over to Dunstable in the next 4 weeks or so
LD
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Hello, I popped over to Dunstable cemetery and found the grave for you.
It has Mary on the top.
In loving memory of our very dear friend
Stephen Swider
who passed away 5th February 1956
aged 41 years
Eternal rest give unto him Oh Lord
May he rest in peace
SIP
Sorry the rest is in Polish
Stefan Swider 15/12/14 Piekary (Poland)
6/2/1956 W. Luton
I did take pictures but have never transferred from camera to Rootschat. Will have to think about that.
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Wow Retriever, that is brilliant. Putting a photo on RC is easy, just click on attachments at the end of where you post. Just make sure you give your photo a name that hasn't been used before. Or you could send eli2 a PM and get their email address.
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eli2. Herewith the two photos I took yesterday.
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Wow, it's great! I really don't know what to say! I'm very very grateful..and once again, I really don't know so many words in english to decribe this :D It's fantastic to see that this is grave is still there in a such good health. Amazing. Could I ask how did you find this grave? It was easy to find or rather hard? When I read earlier post here from lazydaisy and others when they suggested that somebody could do a photo, I wanted to post here cemetery map from bing maps and I wanted to show where is exactly this grave is. But to do this, I needed little more time to do a screenshots from distance and from a closer look from bing maps and to write some explanations on this cemetery map where this grave is and yesterday I didn't have time for this, only for checking the thread. I wanted to do this today so I'm checking the thread once again today and such an amazing surprise - photos are here! I really don't know what to say.
Retriever, Thank you very very much :) And of course to all others in this thread too.
Beautiful surprise.
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You must be delighted, Eli2. Please don't worry, your English is excellent.
What an amazing grave as well, either he left money for it to be erected or his friends must have thought a lot of him. Can I just ask, Retriever, did you put the flowers there? If not, there must still be people who remember him and keep the grave tidy.
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I'm much more than delighted. There were tears when I showed photos to my father...
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So glad you have the photos - sooner than I could have taken them
LD
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You are very welcome eli2, I am glad I could help. It is a very big cemetery so I couldn't have found it without the plot number.
The grave isn't in the Catholic section, which is where I expected it to be. The flowers are artificial poinsettias so must have been put there at Christmas time.
I don't know if the funeral service was at St Mary, Luton or Dunstable but either way there are pictures on Google .
The grave looks in very good condition except some of the lead lettering has come away. The cemetery itself is very well kept and looks very nice at the moment with lots of spring flowers and bulbs.
Bye
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Sorry, there don't seem to be any photos online of old St Mary church, Dunstable, only the present one opened in 1964 so too late.
Also I see I've typed 6th, should of course be 5th.