Burial Register

Tenor John Braham was buried at Kensal Green in 1856. Register pages can be requested via enquiries@kensalgreencemetery.com or visit deceasedonline.com

1NUMBER

This page of the register relates to the plots numbered 5,961 to 5,963.

2LOCATION

The precise location of the opera singer’s grave is “Sq. 6.6” within the larger area designated 5,961. The grave cost “£3.3”, ie £3 3s – the approximate equivalent of £200 in today’s money.

3NAMES

Here are the names of all those interred in the plot, and the year they were buried. These include John’s wife and three sons. The records on

Deceased Online include address.

4REMOVAL

A note records that the body of his son Ward was moved to another cemetery in 1879.

5DAMAGE

Another handwritten note from 1956 reads “Headstone blown down and broken”. Unfortunately, the grave is still in this state of disrepair.

6DEPTH

This grave is seven feet deep. A foot of earth was usually left between stacked coffins for reasons of hygiene, with four feet at the very top.

Just like in London, those with more money could pay for conspicuous plots with ornate memorials, and secure their plot in perpetuity. Our forebears who were less well off would buy a more modest location on the edge of the cemetery, perhaps leased for as little as five years.

Municipal Cemeteries

From the 1840s, local authorities started to open their own municipal cemeteries along similar lines, funded by public money. The emphasis on creating a beautiful and peaceful environment was upheld, and – just like many private cemeteries – separate areas were allocated for those of different faiths.

If you are looking for the grave of a relation who died in the 19th century, there are a range of resources you can use. If they died before the introduction of civil registration in 1837, then parish burial registers are the most obvious place to start. However, increasingly fewer people were buried in overcrowded churchyards following the arrival of private and public cemeteries in the 1830s. This means that you will need to investigate cemetery registers.

Cemeteries look after their own records, and the information that is recorded differs from place to place. Deceased Online ( deceasedonline.com) is a valuable resource that works with cemeteries to digitise their records. You can search for an ancestor by name (and their year of death, if you know it) before paying a small fee to view any records that the database might hold. These records may tell you who bought the plot, when it was purchased and how much it cost, as well as who is buried there and what sort of grave it was.

Many larger cemeteries have information on their website that tells you how to go about accessing their records, often offering a search service in exchange for a fee. Local record offices are also a good place to look. Some of them have produced useful guidance to help researchers navigate burial

records in the area, and you may also find transcriptions of the original burial registers and plans that reveal where particular plots are located.

Once you have located the grave of your forebear, it might be time to pay them a visit. While cemetery records are valuable sources of information, a grave has its own stories to tell.

For instance, the Victorians used a great deal of symbolism in their funerary architecture. One of the symbols you might spot carved into a headstone or memorial is an anchor; this symbolises hope and steadfastness, and was also used for the graves of sailors. If you see an angel pointing upwards, it represents the ascension of the soul; if pointing downwards, it can indicate a sudden death. A column represents a person’s life, so a ‘broken’ column indicates a life cut short. A daisy represents innocence, so can often be seen on children’s graves. An hourglass is a symbol of passing time; wings are sometimes added to remind the viewer that ‘time flies’. Finally you will often see urns that are draped with a carved cloth, symbolising mourning and the veil between life and death.

Alternative Memorials

Not all graves consist of a headstone. Some might be marked with a sculpture instead, or you may even come across a mausoleum – a small building, often designed to resemble a classical temple, which holds a group of coffins. Slightly less opulent is a ‘chest’ tomb – the body is typically buried beneath the stone chest, rather than inside it. Some cemeteries have catacombs, too – underground vaults designed to store rows of coffins on shelves. At Kensal Green Cemetery the catacombs even had a hydraulic lift that was used to lower down bodies.

If you find an ancestor’s grave, look carefully at those that surround it. You can sometimes find clusters of other family graves close by, and inscriptions containing names and dates may shed new light on branches of your family tree that you have not yet encountered.

From the location and symbolism of a grave to its inscriptions and style, our forebears have much to reveal – even in death.

The Victorians used a great deal of symbolism in their funerary architecture