Burial registers

Tracking down the records of an ancestor’s final resting place could open up whole new avenues of research

As with baptisms, before civil registration was introduced in 1837 it was the ceremony of a burial, rather than the actual death itself that was recorded for official purposes. However, while baptisms didn’t always immediately follow a birth, you can assume a burial was conducted within a few days of the person’s passing, which should help you trace a rough date of death and may then lead you to other records held by Ancestry.co.uk.

For example, using the date, you can check whether they left a will using Ancestry’s extensive nationwide probate collection, while a burial record of a mother dated around the same time as her child’s baptism record suggests she died in childbirth. Browsing burial registers may also reveal epidemics.

Early burial registers only tended to record the person’s name, date of burial and parish in which they were interred, although you may find other details including their occupation or religious belief.

Sometimes a woman’s burial record may just show the name of her husband, stating that his wife had died. You can search

A woman’s burial record may just show the name of her husband

these in the London Metropolitan Archives’ ( LMA) London, Baptisms, Marriages and Burials 1538-1812 on Ancestry.

However, if the register you’re looking for is after 1813 when George Rose’s Act introduced pre- printed, standardised forms, they will also include age, address and names of parents if it was a child’s burial. You can find these in London, Church of England Deaths and Burials 1813-1980.

FINAL RESTING PLACE

Parish churches tend to have their own graveyards, and for centuries their parishioners were buried in these small areas. Though the headstones haven’t always survived, seeing which parish your ancestor was buried in will give you the best possible clue as to where you can find their final resting place. If the churchyard is still there, why not go and see if you find their grave and pay your respects?

However, the accelerating size of London in the 18th and 19th centuries meant these small parish graveyards were

becoming grossly overcrowded. This led to the formation of large, private cemeteries around central London – including Highgate, Brompton and Tower Hamlets, which became known as the ‘Magnificent Seven’ cemeteries. You’re likely to find your ancestors in the deaths and burials collection increasingly buried in these grounds from 1830 onwards, while there is a separate collection of records for Tower Hamlets cemetery.

As with smaller cemeteries, though, gravestones haven’t always survived. Also people were often buried in large, unmarked graves, so you will probably need maps and other records from these graveyards to find your ancestor’s grave.

The workhouse was the bottom rung of the ladder in Victorian England, with many of the destitute ending their days in these grim institutions. Though some were buried by family in their home parish, most who died here had a pauper’s burial – either in the parish churchyard, or the workhouse burial ground. Their bodies might even have been donated to medical science.

As well as burial registers, the London, Deaths and Burials collection on Ancestry, includes the Board of Guardian records relating to workhouse deaths from 1834 to 1906. You can search these by selecting ‘death’ under record type on the search page. Details in the records include the workhouse they died in, name, date of death, the parish they were admitted from, and where they were buried. Those who you find in these records will sadly have been just one of many who spent their final days in a workhouse.

Tracking down your forebears’ final resting place using burial records can be a satisfying conclusion to their story.