RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Shrop63 on Tuesday 30 September 25 16:57 BST (UK)
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Recently found a "no grave photo" situation on Findagrave does this mean there is a grave just no photo or no grave and a memorial?
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Some records on findagrave have just been put on because they appear in the burial register. Does the record give a source of the information.
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Worth trying billiongraves as well. Our churchyard has some gravestones photgraphed on findagrave, some on billiongraves, some on both and some on neither. Loooks like the volunteer photographers were unaware of each others' activity.
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It just means that whoever created the Find a Grave memorial had good reason to believe that there is a burial at the churchyard/cemetery (or maybe just scattered ashes or the name on an inscription), but no one has yet investigated and added a photo. How easy that would be depends on a wide range of individual circumstances.
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A lot of old churchyards have removed old headstones for safety, they often place them around the boundary wall. I have several photographs of the area where some of my family are buying but all there is to see is what appears to be a lawn.
Then just because a burial is recorded in a cemetery it doesn’t necessarily mean there was ever a headstone. Many families couldn’t afford one.
Many people have been exhumed and re buried elsewhere where when churches have come to the end of their intended use. That happened about six years ago at the Church where I was married. The church is now a house and the bodies have been removed to a municipal cemetery. The headstones (not all had them) can be seen along an old boundary wall.
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Many, many times when I use Find a Grave there are no photos of headstones but I don't think there's any obvious way to check if there is, or isn't, an actual headstone for a particular plot.
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A lot of old churchyards have removed old headstones for safety, they often place them around the boundary wall. I have several photographs of the area where some of my family are buying but all there is to see is what appears to be a lawn.
Then just because a burial is recorded in a cemetery it doesn’t necessarily mean there was ever a headstone. Many families couldn’t afford one.
Many people have been exhumed and re buried elsewhere where when churches have come to the end of their intended use. That happened about six years ago at the Church where I was married. The church is now a house and the bodies have been removed to a municipal cemetery. The headstones (not all had them) can be seen along an old boundary wall.
To give an idea of the reality - our church's register goes back into the 16th century, and records just under 10,000 burials; the church is significantly older, so we think we may have another few thousand. We have records of more recent graves, although the location of each grave wasn't recorded in the register until the 1990s. We have about 700 headstones, of which about 100 from dates up to mid 19th century were moved to the perimiter of the churchyard in the 1990s. I haven't counted the number of grave plots that are visible (i.e. headstone or unmarked plot between two headstones) but I'd estimate at around 800. And to make it more complicated, part of the churchyard is an extension from 1930, so the original area must have been re-used multiple times.
So when I'm asked to locate a grave, often it's totally impossible if it's from before about 1900, as there is neither a record of where it was, nor is there a headstone. For 20th contury graves that don't have headstones, we can make an educated guess by burial date - but our evidence is that graves weren't always used in sequence (it's possible to reserve a plot, for example). So I've had to give disappointing replies on occasion, with no hope of answering the researchers' questions.
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Another thing to be aware of it blatant error on Find A Grave.
Our present church was built in mid-1800s and the first burials were a little bit later (the previous one had no burying ground). No burial register was kept and probably the first attempt to make a record of plots (not burial, just plots) was in the 1950s when the minister took the old (retired) sexton about the ground any wrote down what he could remember.
Now, we know there were no burial at the church until the 1840s (it was part of our farm before that) but someone has entered dozens of 'burials' there in the 1700s for families that left in 1718! Quite a few times I have seen photo requests for these phantom headstones and have contacted the person to explain these burials are incorrect. I have contacted the couple that put the details into Find A Grave but they said they will not make any changes until I send proof!