Grave location books prove useful

A fortnight or so ago we published a blog about some grave location books which had recently turned up. We hoped it would help us find graves which visitors might be searching for. The system has now had its first real test.

We were phoned by a lady who lives in East Kent but whose ancestors – grandparents and great grandparents were buried in our Market Lavington church yard. The lady had searched for the great grandparents’ graves but had failed to locate them.

The burials were recent enough for them to be in the newer burial area. The graves here are listed by where they are, rather than by date or by name of person. It was a case of scanning through the book until the right names were found. This is the relevant page in the book. The writer clearly made a mistake in the row number and had to correct it.

Page from grave location book

The lost grave was that of Mary Ann and George Olive and it is one double plot in row 18, plots 4 and 5.

The great news is that armed with the information our curator was able to walk straight to this grave. It has stones, but of a kind which can easily allow inscriptions to be lost in the grass. This low level square of stone is the looked for grave.

The lost grave is found

The grass is tolerably short at the moment and an inscription could be found.

The inscription could easily be covered when the grass grows

This reads Mary Ann Olive – Beloved Parents – George Olive. Actually, a couple of letters have fallen off but there’s enough there to be absolutely certain that this is the sought after grave.

And what a win-win situation this is. A lost grave has been found so the relative will be able to pay homage to ancestors here on a future visit. And we at the museum really do, now, have the information to find lost graves.

 

Tags: grave locations