In a message dated 15/10/2006 21:56:20 GMT Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: Could anyone shed some light on the burial customs on the 1700 & 1800's in Renfrewshire. Many Carswells farmed & died in the Neilston district during this period but only a very few Carswell gravestones are found in the Neilston churchyard. Were they likely to be buried there without headstones or buried on their farms as can be the custom in rural Australia ?. Hi John Burials would take place in the churchyard ..with the possible exception of a few families with very large estates ...burials did not take place on private land. Many burials did not have a marker of any sort. Some may have been marked with wood but these did not survive. Even those headstones which were erected did not always survive in a good enough condition to be legible to 20th century transcribers. Even today burials take place and headstones are not erected ...they cost money in the past and they cost money now! <g> Irene