I appreciate your having taken time to reply to these Gavin. I expect you've realised I am searching for clues. I wondered who would have the name of the last deceased member of the family engraved on a stone if all the members of the family had died. Some family friend perhaps with money to spare for the engraving. >From what you have said about other names in a grave you have told me that different names on an inscription do not mean they are related. Janet ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gavin Bell" <g.bell@which.net> > Janet wrote: > > I cannot see any reply to this message so I will put in my tuppence-worth. > >>Is there recorded anywhere who commissioned the most recent engraving of a stone? >> > > Quite possibly not - although the position may vary according to where > the stone is and how long ago any addition or alteration was made. > > Burial in the ancient parish burial grounds was not, generally-speaking, > a highly organised matter. To start with, the layout of the graves is > often chaotic: in the Kirkyard of Banchory-Devenick, whose MIs have > recently been published, it looks as if there were at least three > independent and incompatible ground-plans (possibly in the heads of > successive gravediggers) which collide in the middle of the burial > ground, so how anyone knew where anyone was buried is a mystery. That > said, families did tend to bury their dead close by each other, but the > choice of burial-place and decisions as to what stones should be > erected, and what should appear on them, was probably governed by > custom, rather than anything more formal. > > In the non-denominational (and generally commercially-operated) > cemeteries which came into use from the mid-19th century, matters were > rather more formal. The entire ground was, from the outset, mapped out > and divided into numbered plots (or "lairs"), and the normal mechanism > was for a family or an individual to purchase a lair or lairs for the > use of himself and his family. I recently came into possession of a > Lair Certificate (with accompanying regulations) for Trinity Cemetery, > Aberdeen. This records the sale, in 1904, of a "Class 4" lair, and the > regulations are very detailed. Regarding gravestones or other > memorials, it is stated that "... no Monument, Tablet, Inscription, > Enclosure, Erection, Tree, Shrub, Vault, or building of any kind will be > permitted until a drawing and specification of what is proposed have > been submitted to and approved by the Master of the Trades Hospital* or > his factor." > > The original parish burial grounds came under the control and > responsibility of the then County Councils around 1929, and they brought > in a degree of discipline to the management of the burial grounds - > although exactly how rigorous this management was I suspect varied, with > strict rules more likely to be applied in big urban burial grounds than > in small rural ones. The urban ones generally had ornate "lodges" at > one or more of the cemetery gates, and the employess who resided there > would no doubt have enforced the rules. But this was less likely in the > countryside. > >>Is there a consecrated ground law somewhere that those buried in the same grave must be >>or are related? >> >> > > There is, to the Kirk of Scotland, no such thing as "consecrated > ground", and the later Cemeteries were specifically non-denominational. > So no, there is no law stating who may or may not be buried in any given > grave. In the case of the Trinity Cemetery lair I mentioned above, no > burial could be carried out unless the person organising the burial > produced the certificate showing them to be the owner of the lair, but > if they chose to give room to somone not related to them, they had the > perfect right so to do. And you do occasionally, in the Memorial > Inscriptions, find cases where grand families were graciously pleased > to host the corpse of a long-lived servant in their burial ground. > > I have also seen some of the Lair Records for another of the Aberdeen > Cemeteries, and from this, it would appear that, in cases where a lair > had been purchased some time previously, but no interments had taken > place in it, the Cemetery authorities were not above using the lair for > the burial of paupers. > > > Gavin Bell > > > * an officer of tne "Incoporated Trades" of Aberdeen, who owned the > burial ground. > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ABERDEEN-request@rootsweb.com with > the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message