Cemetery Records Archives - Genealogical.com

The People of the Grampian Highlands, 1600-1699

Barry Chodak — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 16:13:33 +0000

The Grampian Highlands lie in north-east Scotland and stretch from Aberdeenshire, through Kincardineshire, the Braes of Angus, to eastern Perthshire. In the seventeenth century the majority of the population were Gaelic speaking. The region sported only a handful of small burghs, such as Kincardine O’Neill or Fettercairn, with most people dispersed throughout the region, mainly in fermtouns or isolated crofts, and employed in agriculture, notably cattle rearing.

The Grampian Highlands were mostly controlled by landowners such as the Earl of Aboyne or the Earl of Airlie, or heads of families or clans such as Forbes, Gordon, Farquharson, Burnett, Irvine, Douglas, Lindsay, Carnegie, Ogilvie, Spalding, Stewart, and Robertson. These families were generally Royalist and supporters of the House of Stuart, notably in the Jacobite Wars of 1689, 1715, and 1745.

Most seventeenth-century Highlanders, however, were Protestants (Presbyterian and Episcopalian), with a few Roman Catholics in remote glens, such as around Braemar. Emigration from the Grampian Highlands did not occur until the early eighteenth century, apart from prisoners of war banished to the Plantations.

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Irish Gravestone Inscriptions

gpcdevel — Fri, 03 May 2019 20:27:00 +0000

Heritage World of County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, has surveyed the gravestone inscriptions for almost 900 cemeteries across the northern part of Ireland. The great majority of these cemeteries are located in Northern Ireland, although the figure includes a substantial number from two other Ulster counties, Donegal and Monaghan, as well as several from County Louth. The survey encompasses cemeteries of all religious denominations as well as those administered by local district and borough councils. In each case, there is an exact transcript of all gravestone inscriptions, together with a simple plan of the cemetery.

Information pertaining to these cemeteries can be acquired from Heritage World either as an index, giving county, parish, person, cemetery name, date of death, and denomination, or as a full gravestone inscription. These details can be supplied for any name in a particular cemetery, parish, or county.

This book lists all cemeteries surveyed to date by Heritage World. Arranged by county, all 900 cemeteries are listed by the civil parish in which they are located, together with their religious denomination. In brief, then, this is a guide to the 900 cemeteries surveyed in the nine counties of Antrim, Armagh, Derry, Donegal, Down, Fermanagh, Louth, Monaghan, and Tyrone, with pointers for the researcher to follow for acquiring full details of individual gravestone inscriptions.

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Epitaphs from Burial Hill, Plymouth, Massachusetts, from 1657 to 1892

gpcdevel — Fri, 03 May 2019 20:25:00 +0000

This work consists of exact transcriptions of the epitaphs from Burial Hill in historic Plymouth, Massachusetts, nearly 2,000 in all, covering the period from 1657 to 1892. With hundreds of informative references to related family members, these epitaphs are universally regarded as a genealogical record-source of wide and unimpeachable authority. Those buried here are mostly descendants of the early Pilgrims.

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Colonial Gravestone Inscriptions in the State of New Hampshire

gpcdevel — Fri, 03 May 2019 20:25:00 +0000

Mrs. Goss has assembled a list of about 12,500 names found on New Hampshire headstones prior to 1770. Arranged alphabetically by village or town, then, under cemetery, alphabetically by family name, her transcriptions are as complete a record of Colonial New Hampshire gravestone inscriptions as we are ever likely to have.

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Burial Hill, Plymouth, Massachusetts

gpcdevel — Fri, 03 May 2019 20:25:00 +0000

Most of the tombstone inscriptions in this work pertain to 18th- and early 19th-century descendants of the Pilgrims and other 17th-century arrivals at Plymouth. While the contents of the 2,163 tombstones vary to some degree, virtually all of them state the name of the deceased, his/her age, and date of death. In many instances we are also given the names of spouses, children, or parents.

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Genealogy at a Glance: American Cemetery Research

gpcdevel — Fri, 03 May 2019 20:25:00 +0000

Cemeteries are not just hallowed and mysterious places, they are also repositories of genealogical knowledge, their tombstones providing crucial information ranging from the name of the deceased and his birth and death dates to a bonanza of biographical detail that often includes the names of parents, children, and spouse. But tombstones are more like artifacts than documents, and they require a different approach and give rise to different expectations. In its now familiar format, this new “Genealogy at a Glance” publication addresses these grave issues, expertly covering the unique aspects of cemetery research in four specially laminated pages.
First–and here’s the most unusual aspect of this genealogical research assignment–you need to locate your ancestor’s final resting place. The date of death and place of death are important clues, but there’s much more to it than that, as you’ll find out. Once you are familiar with the various methods of tracking down a likely cemetery, you will be guided through the different types of cemeteries, and how their records and maps of plots can make a difference in your research. The rest of this guide describes how to take a field trip to the cemetery to find the tombstone; transcribe the inscription; take a photograph; note the stone’s location, composition, and artwork; and, finally, note the names on the tombstones located near your ancestor for clues to relationships.
But practical considerations trump everything, and you are advised to wear protective clothing and boots, told how to take better photographs with a mirror, and taught how to make tombstone rubbings with a jumbo crayon. After all this fun you might want to consult some of the reference books mentioned here, or you might want to visit the Databases of the Dead, Ms. Carmack’s list of online cemetery transcription projects. Finally, you might be lucky enough to find the living among the dead. Check out American Cemetery Research and find out how.

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Scottish-American Gravestones, 1700-1900. Volume II

gpcdevel — Thu, 02 May 2019 19:42:00 +0000

Gravestones and monumental inscriptions contain a wealth of information for the family historian. This primary source of data is of particular importance to Scottish genealogists as the Old Parish Registers of the Church of Scotland concentrate on baptism and marriage and contain little information on burials. Gravestone inscriptions thus provide an almost unique source for deaths prior to 1855 in Scotland and for Scots dying overseas before that date. After 1855 there are statutory records of births, marriages, and deaths in Scotland. The only other major sources of such information lie in the obituary pages of the press or in the various Registers of Testaments.

Recently various family history societies, especially the Scottish Genealogy Society, the Aberdeen and North East Scotland Family History Society, and the Tay Valley Family History Society have been actively recording such inscriptions. The urgency of their work results from the fact that many stones are crumbling away, while others have been subject to vandalism or to destruction by local authorities clearing graveyards prior to “development.” Many of the inscriptions have now been published by the societies concerned.

This book, the second in its series and the first such collection since 1998, is based on both published and unpublished material. The book also differs from Volume One in that it includes gravestone inscriptions located in cemeteries on both sides of the Atlantic. While the inscriptions are unique unto themselves, virtually every one identifies the decedent by name, years of birth as well as death, and place of demise in North America In many instances the entries also convey an individual’s parents’ names, the decedent’s occupation, year of emigration, and the source. In all Volume II contains about 1,600 inscriptions with references to at least three times as many Scots or Scottish-Americans.

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The Third Parish Registers of Belize, 1828-1841

gpcdevel — Thu, 02 May 2019 19:39:00 +0000

Sonia Murray’s popular series of vital records from Belize (former British Honduras) continues with this third installment. Following a very helpful Introduction that explains some peculiarities of Belize records (e.g., the importance of Scottish patronymics, by which women kept their maiden names throughout their lives), Mrs. Murray arranges her findings by record group. The baptismal and burial registers for St. Johns Church specify newborns by date of birth and names of parents, and decedents by age at and date of death. Next follow cemetery inscriptions for St. George’s Cave Cemetery, Church Street Cemetery, Yarborough Cemetery, and St. John’s Cathedral. Richer in detail than the earlier records described, these provide the names of various family members, dates of birth, and miscellaneous information, along with the decedent’s age at and date of death. By far the longest collection of records in this volume is Mrs. Murray’s transcriptions of the Belize censuses for 1832, 1835, and 1839. In general, these records indicate the names and ages of all persons living in a household, as well as more specific information (e.g., race, slave or free) for household heads. Rounding out the book are two collections of vital records Mrs. Murray culled from the Belize Advertiser (1839-1840) and a variety of British newspapers. These entries are most detailed, ranging from simple obituaries to mini-genealogies of persons with Belize connections. The concluding full name index refers to well over 5,000 persons, and an index to ships lists all vessels cited in the newspaper articles.

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Henry County [Kentucky] Cemeteries: Parts I, II, and III

gpcdevel — Thu, 02 May 2019 19:37:00 +0000

This collection of transcriptions of gravestones from a large number of Henry County, Kentucky, cemeteries originally appeared in three issues of The Filson Club History Quarterly (July and September 1978, and July 1979) and is reprinted here with permission of The Filson Club. Mr. Johnson, then a member of the Oldham County Historical Society, prepared the first two installments; Mrs. Dent, an active Filsonian and local historian, prepared the final part. Taken as a whole, the work identifies Henry County inhabitants buried in 83 different cemeteries, including the large South Pleasureville Public Cemetery, whose records occupy almost all of Mrs. Dent’s portion.

The arrangement of the records is consistent throughout–by cemetery and thereunder alphabetically. Each entry gives the name of the deceased, date or year of death, and, in the overwhelming number of cases, date or year of birth. The transcribers also recorded any additional information found on the stones that could be of use to genealogists, such as name of spouse or other relation, military service, county of birth, and so forth. In the aggregate, the records cover individuals who were born as early as the 1790s and other individuals who died as late as the 1960s. In all, researchers will find references to over 6,000 persons who died in Henry County.

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Some Cemetery Records of Abbeville County, South Carolina

gpcdevel — Thu, 02 May 2019 19:36:00 +0000

The records presented here were copied by the WPA from tombstones in three cemeteries in Abbeville County, South Carolina: Melrose Cemetery, Episcopal Churchyard, and Long Canes Cemetery. While the majority of transcriptions give only the name of the decedent and his dates of birth and death, a number of them also refer to kinsmen or provide additional biographical information. Refers to nearly 3,000 persons buried in Abbeville County cemeteries between 1795 and 1936.

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