Exploring your canal ancestry: In memoriam
Nicola Lisle continues her family history series with a look at graves and monumental inscriptions.
BY NOW you have probably amassed a good collection of names, dates and other useful details about your ancestors from the parish registers and General Register Office. But what if there are gaps or uncertainties in your findings? What if there are contradictions in the dates, for example?
A good way of trying to iron out some of these wrinkles is to take a trip to your ancestors’ graves, if they still exist. As well as feeling a spiritual connection to your ancestors, you can also discover details not found elsewhere or confirm names, dates and family connections.
Before the 17th century it was customary to mark graves with a simple wooden cross and it is unlikely that any of these early graves have survived. From the 17th century, though, it became usual for people to erect headstones in remembrance of their loved ones. These gradually became more detailed and elaborate, particularly in the Victorian era, when decorative carvings, symbols and quotes from biblical or literary texts were popular.
The amount of detail on a headstone can obviously vary greatly, from little more than a name and relevant dates to a potted biography. The details you are most likely to come across include the full name of the deceased, birth and death dates (sometimes full dates, sometimes just the month and year), age at death and names of family members. These can be useful to cross reference with details gleaned from birth and death certificates. You might also find the cause of death, occupation, dates of military service, official titles and even symbols suggesting hobbies – a cricket bat for a cricket fan, for example.
It is important to bear in mind, though, that these details can be inaccurate, so as always cross referencing is essential.
To find where your ancestors are buried, try searching the National Burial Index, a database of more than 18 million burial records collated by the Family History Federation (www.familyhistoryfederation. com), searchable on https://search. findmypast.co.uk/.
If you know the county or region where your ancestors might be buried, you could search the church and cemetery records in the relevant local record offices. Here you can also search the local newspaper archives for death notices and obituaries, which often give the place of burial as well as other biographical details.
Unsurprisingly, graves of canal families are often to be found in churches along canal routes, so if you know which canal your ancestors worked or lived on this will give clues about their final resting places.
One of the most famous burial sites for boating families is All Saints’ Church in Braunston, Northamptonshire. The village became home to a growing boating community with the completion of the Grand Junction Canal, and the church – known as the ‘cathedral of the canals’ – saw many boating family weddings, baptisms and funerals from the early 19th century onwards. Anyone with boating ancestors connected to the canal in Northamptonshire might well find their graves in Braunston.
Inevitably, many graves and indeed entire graveyards no longer exist. Where they do exist, inscriptions on older headstones are often illegible, while other headstones may have been destroyed, vandalised or moved by the local authority for health and safety reasons.
Sometimes graves have been moved to a different location by local authorities, usually because the graveyard has been cleared for development, so you will need to contact the relevant authority for details of the new location.
So, what if you can’t find a grave or the headstone is illegible? No problem – vast numbers of headstones across the UK have been painstakingly transcribed, and the transcripts of these monumental inscriptions (MIs), are an invaluable resource for family historians.
You can find transcripts of MIs through relevant local record offices, The Society of Genealogists (www. sog.org.uk/sogcat/access) and family history societies (visit www.ffhs.org.uk for details of family history societies in England, Wales and Ireland, or www. safhs.org.uk for Scotland).
The Society of Genealogists has a searchable online catalogue, but you will need to visit the society’s library to view the transcripts. Family history societies generally have MI transcripts available on CD or as downloads for a small charge.
You could also try searching FindMyPast (www.findmypast.co.uk), which has one of the largest collections of online MI transcripts. Searches are free, but there is a charge for the transcripts.
As with all transcriptions, bear in mind that errors might have crept in during the transcribing process, so try to visit the grave as well if you can, or cross reference with other sources.