General Chat

For those who want to know where their Church of England ancestors are buried, here's some great news


https://news.sky.com/story/every-grave-in-the-church-of-englands-19-000-graveyards-is-being-digitally-mapped-12399528

I wonder if they'll record gravestones removed from graves, and placed around the walls, or as in my g X 4 grandad's stone, which was removed from his grave in Romsey Abbey grounds, as he was a 'commoner', and used as part of the pathway to the war memorial :-(

It was bad enough having my backside filmed ( I was getting a load of shopping out of the car) when the Google car went past.
Now I am concerned that visitors to their relatives graves may find this intrusive.

That's great news Pat. Hope I'm still around at the end of the 7 years that they say the project will take :-D

Kath. x

Some of those removed headstones are now long gone.

The grave of one set of my grandparents has sunk and I have no idea if there was a marker. We visited the cemetery of several of the OH’s relatives and none of them have markers. We worked out all of the placings from plot numbers.

Romsey Abbey have no record of 'commoners' graves, or the headstones.
When I asked an official about my g x grandad (Henry Floyd's) grave, I was brusquely informed that, as a commoner, he would have been buried at Botley Road Cemetery.
Botley Road Cemetary was established in 1857.
Henry died in 1842.
His worn headstone is in the Abbey grounds, as part of a footpath, along with the headstones of other commoners, who died before 1857, but, apparently, he wasn't buried there.

I have one lot whose gravestones failed the "topple test" and are now round the church walls.

Another lot were buried in paupers graves and never had gravestones at all.

In both cases though the church already has full records of who was buried where, so digitising them should be fairly straightforward.