Thank you so much for your response, as always very interesting and educational. To be able to bury their dead as they wished once they arrived in the Colonies must have been an added benefit to settling here. Judy On 04/24/13, cor snabel<cor.snabel@gmail.com> wrote: Judy and list, On 23 April 2013 23:04, <[1]jacassidy22@verizon.net> wrote: > > This is very interesting, What was customary back in the 1600's when our > ancestors lived in the Netherlands? > Judy > In those days most people were buried inside the church. And as close to the altar as possible. Those around the altar were of course the most expensive graves. Suicides, non-baptized babies, heretics and those who died by the hand of the executioner, were not allowed to be buried inside the church. They were buried in a special part of the graveyard next to the church. The other part was for the poor. The graves were not emptied, which caused a lot of problems, especially inside the churches. The church authorities had to perform divine services on a regular base, but also a growing number of rich families, who wanted their relative to be buried inside the church. So they had to store the corpses till there was an opportunity for the funeral. If the city was struck by an epidemic, the problems were huge. During the divine services even perfume was not effective enough, so the situation was unbearable. Authorities decided, that the funerals would be performed in the evening, after all services and masses were over. It lasted until Napoleon occupied the Netherlands and he declared an offical ban on church funerals in 1804. When the French left in 1813 people started church funerals again, but in 1829 king Willem 1 signed a law against burials inside the church. New graveyards had to be outside the city, although some of those have already been 'swallowed' by city expansion. Regards, Cor Snabel The Netherlands > > > On 04/23/13, cor snabel<[2]cor.snabel@gmail.com> wrote: > > Dear list, > To me it's amazing to see graves as old as 1750 or even older. > Here in the Netherlands a grave from 1950 is an rare exception. > Because we have so little space in our overcrowded country, one can only > rent a grave for a limited time. > We know two kinds of graves, the general grave and the private grave. > In a general grave, which is most common, two or three people are > buried, > who were usually (during their lifetime) strangers to each other. They > each > have their own small gravestone close to each other. After ten years > these > graves are removed to make place for someone else. > The private grave or family grave is also rented, but one can rent it > for > 10, 20 or 30 years. After that period the rent can be extended with > another > 10 or 20 years. And the contractant is free to decide who will be buried > there. > There are only a few âeternal gravesâ. Those graves last until the > graveyard stops to excist. But that option is no longer possible. > Regards > Cor Snabel > The Netherlands > > > ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to DU[3]TCH-COLONIES-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message References 1. mailto:jacassidy22@verizon.net 2. mailto:cor.snabel@gmail.com 3. mailto:TCH-COLONIES-request@rootsweb.com