I found this online at the site for Western cemetery, that I believe helps explain it... Mary in Oregon Thanks to Karen and other who help with my baker, Hugh McLaren and his wife Annie Powrie, who I found buried in a Port Elgin, Bruce county ontario. I have not found the Mi's yet, but the lousy Ontario census put's their births at between 1807 and 1825. Many of the people buried in Western cemetery illustrate these links. This area of Dundee was, and still is, a well-to-do area and there are the graves of provosts, businessmen and other prominent families in this cemetery. One interesting practice carried out by lair owners was that, when the lair or lairs became full – 3 adults was the usual for one grave – they had the grave cleansed. That is, it was dug out to a depth of about 8 feet. The old remains were then re-interred and covered with earth so that a depth of 6 feet was again available. This practice was also used in other cemeteries. These families very often had lairs in the strip of ground next to the walls and the gravestones were usually fixed to the wall. In a message dated 11/18/2010 5:15:48 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, peterbooth2@bigpond.com writes: On Scotland's People, I found a death record from 1830. It was part of a whole page from a burials register. The column headings were Proprietor, Date, Name of Deceased, Age, Complaint, Space Occupied, Depth and Male or Female. I'm wondering at the significance of Proprietor, Space Occupied and Depth. Can someone explain the system for me? It looks like the proprietor bought a family plot and the whole family were buried there at different depths. Looking at the depths, they range from 4ft to 12 ft. Hopefully the first was buried the deepest, but it doesn't seem to be the case. Did they just dig through the earlier burials? There also appears to be a North grave and a South grave. Between them they seem to cover 20 burials over 25 years. Does this seem right? Peter in Sydney When replying to a message or a digest, please delete everything except the portion to which you are replying. ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to PERTHSHIRE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message