Paupers were generally buried in an area set aside for this purpose in burial grounds and, since they died peniless, their graves were unmarked. To be paupers, the Parochial Board who gave them basic maintenance, and ultimately a pauper burial, would have been expected to exhaust all attempts to trace relatives to pressure them into giving support before the Board itself would put them on the poor roll. So that generally meant that there wa sno one to step forward to buy a burial plut and perhaps eventually put a stone on it. Before 1845, the poor law was administered by the Church of Scotland at parish level. After the Poor Law (Scotland) Act of 1845, by which time the religious denominational mix of Scotland was become more diverse, poor law provision was effectively a secular function funded by rates rather than Church of Scotland income from collections, hire of mort cloths, etc. Hope this helps. Iain ----- Original Message ----- From: "mary amelia paladin" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, December 05, 2011 9:27 PM Subject: [DUMFRIES-GALLOWAY] paupers' burials > > I have a question or two regarding the burials of those who had very > little > money and, how/where they were buried-generally... > > Must they have been affiliated w/a church or be attendees to be buried in > the parish cemetaries? > Where there cemetaries for the poor; were they marked with names? > > Many of my ancestors were agriculture laborers working on farms for > others; > they were, in most part, poor people. Before I begin trying to locate > their > resting places I was wondering if there would even be marked graves, > pauper > cemetaries etc... > > Thanks for your time! > > Mary A Paladin > Pennsylvania, USA > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >