Genealogy Chat

Hi, I was told my Grandfather was buried in Heywood Cemetery, when I phoned the records office holding the information for this cemetery I was told that they have no record of him there. This was only in 1968 so not really that long ago. Lisa

Remember not everyone could cough up the money for a stone (and therefore a monumental inscription). Your only record may be their name and the date of burial in the parish register/cemetery book. nell

Some FHS have MI available on fiche or booklet form - you can always take fiche to your local library and view there. Find their website and see what they have in their publication sections. Find the mailing list or message board for the area (probably on ROOTSWEB) and ask there as you will get more local information. There are some very active lists in some parts of the country and often someone will go and do a lookup for you. Look on GENUKI to see if any information there on cemeteries in the area. You did not quote any dates. Many 19th cemeteries will be closed and might well have disappeared completely especially in urban areas. Some councils will supply a copy of the burial grant (??) for a grave which will list all the people buried in it with addresses etc. Some charge and some will send the information free. One gave me the information I needed over the phone. The grave will have a reference number. Sometimes the headstones are marked, sometimes there is a marker on each row so you can work out where a grave is. Often it can be a real pain to make any sense of the number! So ask if they can send you a map - they might offer to have someone show you the location but that then restricts you to normal working hours i.e. not weekends. Any staff working in the cemetery will often be able to help but sometimes they have no idea how the graves are numbered! Martin

Hi Thanks for your help I'll try both avenues! Lisa

You could try here, http://www.interment.net/uk/eng/index.htm But it looks like West Midlands is not covered yet. The Birmingham Family History Society have a look up service at http://www.bmsgh.org/NBI/NBIndex.html

Hi Lisa There are 11 cemeteries and crematoriums in Birmingham area. If you go onto below website and at the top it has A to Z of services.Click on this then C ,then down to cemeteries. Here it gives you the phone or email addresses for all of them. You can ring the offices explaining you are trying to locate your Grandparents graves and their death certs say Birmingham,with the date and name they should be able to help www*birmingham*gov*uk change * for. Hope this helps Deborah

Hi I am trying to find where my grandparents are buried. I have death certificates registered in Birmingham, is there a website with online inscriptions? does anyone know???? help please if you can. thanks Lisa