Hi Jonathon, I have just come across this quote on Devon Heritage for Brixham. Rather a sad story for poor Mary STENTIFORD http://www.devonheritage.org/Places/DevonCounty/MaryStentifordsSettlementExamination3.htm *The recording of child deaths was an informal matter at this time. There was no compulsion under law to bury children in a churchyard and very poor parents like Thomas and Mary may have interred the children close to their home or on the "wrong" side of the churchyard wall. All had been baptised. Little Agnes is one of just a handful of village children recorded in the Parish Register at this time. Bev -------------------------------------------------- From: "Jonathan Frayne" <jonfrayne@btinternet.com> Sent: Thursday, January 23, 2014 10:36 AM To: <devon@rootsweb.com> Subject: Re: [DEV] Recording burials > Hi all > > The main reason churches can sit low compared with their churchyards is > that there are so many thousands of bodies buried in them. The flesh > decays to a small volume, but it does leave a significant volume for each > body. The churchyard plot was used and re-used many, many times. Almost > all graves are not marked-they built the church in the 14th century, say, > and there are no gravestones until the 18th century usually, so there are > 4 hundred years of bodies in there, but not recorded, for as a start. The > graves marked are on top of many other burials in the same place that are > not marked. In most churchyards you walk up a path from the gate to the > church-door with the earth of the churchyard well above you. That is not a > sinking of the path; the amount of soil from the bodies has raised the > surface. There is going to be almost no 'virgin' soil in any original > churchyard in the UK. > > The reason Town Cemeteries were started was usually that rising > populations and therefore rising death rates meant the churchyards became > even more rank than usual with the bodies barely covered in earth at all. > Epidemics, which happened fairly frequently apart from the Black Death, > only made this situation worse. Expanding cities in the 19th century with > the old parish boundaries being retained and a population then probably > 10+ times what it had been as a rural parish, coupled with poor > sanitation, led to cholera and other diseases that wiped out thousands who > all needed to be buried somewhere. Until cremation was sanctioned they all > had to be buried as well and cremation didn't start until the 20th century > in Britain, I think. > > I think it is now rare to be able to buy the freehold of a burial plot in > the UK. The norm is to lease the plot for 100 years with an option for > descendants to renew, I think. I suspect that historically the period you > used the plot for your body was considerably less than this unless you had > bought a family vault. > > Relatively few bodies were actually buried in the church itself. The > richer families could afford to buy a family sepulchre, but even then it > was usually in the churchyard. Most memorials in churches are actually > just that-a way of reminding us of the person's existence and not a marker > for their grave. Some churches that overdid the interior burials became > notorious for their rank smells. Some churches still have ossuaries-where > the bones of the dead from the undercroft and the churchyard which were > dug up, are collected together into, usually neat, stacks with bones all > sorted so skulls are in one place and thigh bones are in another etc. Just > shows how in different times there were very different attitudes to death > than now. "Alas poor Yorick" is a lament for a childhood friend who was > buried and has now been disinterred and his bones discarded in the course > of preparing another burial in the same place. As Hamlet is usually taken > still to be in his 20s, Yorick can't ha! > ve been down there more than about 15 or so years. Obviously a common > event even in the 16th century. > > Jon > > -----Original Message----- > From: devon-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:devon-bounces@rootsweb.com] On > Behalf Of Robyn Waymouth > Sent: 22 January 2014 11:28 > To: devon@rootsweb.com > Subject: Re: [DEV] Recording burials > > Hi Bev, > > Have you ever noticed how some churches seem to sit very low in their > surrounds? Or rather, how high the surrounds are in relation to the floor > level of the church? I saw a programme on TV once where they talked about > the medieval plague victims being buried in such numbers that the ground > level was significantly raised. > > Cheers, > > Robyn > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: devon@rootsweb.com > To: > Cc: > Sent:Wed, 22 Jan 2014 06:14:57 +1000 > Subject:Re: [DEV] Recording burials > > Hi Elizabeth > > I would think so to, so if a burial was in the Charles Church in Plymouth, > then I expect to know that they were buried in the church it self [if the > person was important] or in the churchyard of that church. The trouble is > there are such a lot of burials in the Registers that one wonders how they > were all fitted in with what seems a limited amount of space, and that > goes for any church in any major city. > > Bev > > -------------------------------------------------- > From: "elizabeth howard" > Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2014 8:24 PM > To: > Subject: [DEV] Recording burials > > > Hi Bev. London as we all know is a parallel universe > > so what they do there is rarely anything like what we do in the > country > > ........if my parish priest in 1750 wrote buried John Brown it > would mean > > he > > buried him in the graveyard of the church , not 10 miles away or in > a > > municipal cemetary , it would mean just what he wrote. And when > they ran > > out of burial space round the church they would have either donated > glebe > > land or bought land close by which would have been the extention to > the > > churchyard. Same words would apply surely . > > > > > > > > > > > > life is hard . soften it with a cat =^..^=/// > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "B. Edmonds" > > To: > > Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2014 12:58 AM > > Subject: [DEV] Recording burials > > > > > >> Morning List, > >> > >> For years I have wanted to ask this, but it is one of those > >> questions........................... > >> > >> How does everyone record a place of burial if the exact churchyard > is not > >> known? > >> > >> Generally Family Tree Programs have spots for > >> Died > >> Buried > >> > >> For instance, if the burial is noted in a Parish Church PR, does > it > >> necessarily mean they were buried there? In London, if a burial is > listed > >> in > >> St Mary Fulham in 1857, would the child be buried there, or would > just > >> the > >> service be held there, and the child be taken elsewhere to be > buried? > >> > >> I have just started entering in Buried [place in my program] as... > > >> Service > >> at St Mary Fulham, which then covers the fact that the child might > just > >> not > >> be buried at that Church but in another cemetery. > >> > >> Where I live, no churches have a burial ground [unless in the > country > >> side], there is just one major cemetery and a crematorium. > >> > >> In the past, I have always just put the place of burial in the > Church of > >> the > >> place the entry was found, which I know is not strictly correct > unless > >> there > >> is a tombstone to prove it [or a Sexton's Book], but how else does > one > >> get > >> around this? > >> > >> Bev > >> > >> > >> ------------------------------------------ > >> The DEVON-L mailing list is co-sponsored by GENUKI/Devon > >> ( http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/ ) > >> and > >> the Devon FHS (http://www.devonfhs.org.uk/ ) > >> List archive for Devon can be found at > >> http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index/DEVON/ > >> ------------------------------- > >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > >> DEVON-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes > >> in the subject and the body of the message > >> > > > > ------------------------------------------ > > The DEVON-L mailing list is co-sponsored by GENUKI/Devon > > ( http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/ ) > > and > > the Devon FHS (http://www.devonfhs.org.uk/ ) > > List archive for Devon can be found at > > http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index/DEVON/ > > ------------------------------- > > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > > DEVON-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes > > in the subject and the body of the message > > > > > > ----- > > No virus found in this message. > > Checked by AVG - www.avg.com > > Version: 2012.0.2247 / Virus Database: 3681/6519 - Release Date: > 01/20/14 > > > ------------------------------------------ > The DEVON-L mailing list is co-sponsored by GENUKI/Devon > ( http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/ ) > and > the Devon FHS (http://www.devonfhs.org.uk/ ) > List archive for Devon can be found at > http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index/DEVON/ > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > DEVON-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > ------------------------------------------ > The DEVON-L mailing list is co-sponsored by GENUKI/Devon > ( http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/ ) > and > the Devon FHS (http://www.devonfhs.org.uk/ ) > List archive for Devon can be found at > http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index/DEVON/ > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > DEVON-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes > in the subject and the body of the message > > > > ------------------------------------------ > The DEVON-L mailing list is co-sponsored by GENUKI/Devon > ( http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/ ) > and > the Devon FHS (http://www.devonfhs.org.uk/ ) > List archive for Devon can be found at > http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index/DEVON/ > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > DEVON-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes > in the subject and the body of the message > > > ----- > No virus found in this message. > Checked by AVG - www.avg.com > Version: 2012.0.2247 / Virus Database: 3681/6525 - Release Date: 01/22/14 >