Skip to main content

Most Detailed Registers on Deceased Online

Deceased Online features a wide range of registers and burial transcriptions. Previously in this blog, I've highlighted some of the Scottish collections, particularly monumental inscriptions and how they can be used to tell you more about your ancestors. In this week's post, I show how best to use one of the most detailed English collections in the database for your family history research.

Eastway House, Blandford Forum. An unusually decorative facade, by Blandford standards, for this house on East Street, with a curvy parapet, plus urns and balls. Copyright Derek Harper.

One of the first set of registers to be digitized on the Deceased Online database back in 2010 was that of Blandford Forum Town Council in Dorset. Blandford is a pretty market town located 10 miles north west of Wimborne Minster, 16 miles north of Dorchester, and 104 miles from London. Although much of the town was rebuilt after a fires in the 17th and 18th century, the town dates from Roman times. The Council, based in Church Lane, holds the records for Blandford Forum Cemetery. Dating from 16 June 1856, the cemetery has been well cared for over the years. The Deceased Online collection contains scans of 7,600 burial records, as well as maps of the grave locations.

The above image is taken from the 1858 Register of Burials in the Burial Ground of Blandford Forum 1858. Number 90 in the register is Harriet Cross, a Spinster, aged 62. The register states that she died in Blandford Forum, and was buried on the 1st February by W. Harte, Rector. Her grave number was 179 and she was buried in consecrated ground.

The second entry is for Charles Giles, a Labourer, aged 57, who also died in Blandford Forum. Unlike Harriet Cross, Giles was buried by B. Gray in unconsecrated ground (grave number 23). The close-up below shows the second page with the names of the rector and "B. Gray". The full page shows that all the burials in unconsecrated graves were performed by B. Gray. The 1871 census of Blandford Forum lists a Benjamin Gray as the Independent Minister for Blandford Chapel. This is further supported by the website of the current chapel, which notes that Reverend Gray was Minister between 1855 and 1890. That he buried Charles Giles suggests that Giles, too, was a nonconformist.


Detailed burial registers like this can thus be used not just to identify when and where an individual was buried, but also to point to further sources. Discovering that Charles Giles was buried by an Independent Minister, suggests that his baptism record is likely to be found in nonconformist records. Where records survive for Blandford Forum's Independent Chapel, they could be explored to see, for example, if Giles is mentioned in the minutes or other sources. The occupations written in the registers can be used to check against details of an ancestor given in censuses or on birth, married and death certificates.
Blandford Forum Station [the station no longer exists, but was once located on the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway], with up freight, 1963. Copyright Ben Brooksbank.
If you have Dorset ancestors and want to explore more burial registers, do note that the Deceased Online database also holds nearby records for the coastal areas of Weymouth and Poole.

Have you found a very detailed record on Deceased Online for your ancestor? Do the Blandford Forum records contain the most detail, or have you found records that reveal more? Do let us know in the Comment Box below, or via our Twitter and Facebook pages. We love to hear from you!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

London's Spa Fields

Deceased Online has just uploaded around 114,000 burial records from Spa Fields in the modern London borough of Islington Spa Fields today, with the Church of Our Most Holy Redeemer in the background Spa Fields Burial Ground became notorious in the 19th century for its overcrowded and insanitary conditions. Located in the parish of St James, Clerkenwell, the grave yard was not far from the ever-increasing City of London. Spa Fields was known also as Clerkenwell Fields and Ducking-pond Fields in the late 18th century, hinting at a dark side to what was then a summer evening resort for north Londoners. What would become a cemetery was a ducking pond in the rural grounds of a Spa Fields public house. It was here in 1683 that six children were drowned while playing on the ice. In his History of Clerkenwell (1865) William J. Pinks wrote that visitors, "came hither to witness the rude sports that were in vogue a century ago, such as duck-hunting, prize-fighting, bull-baiting

Haslar and Netley Military Hospital Cemeteries

Following on from last week's post, I'm looking further into Deceased Online 's latest collection of burials. These military burials were digitized in partnership with The National Archives .  Two notable institutions in the collection are Haslar Royal Navy Cemetery and the Royal Victoria Hospital in Netley. Both Haslar and Netley (as it was more commonly known) were Britain's foremost military hospitals during the bloodiest years of war in the western hemisphere The Royal Hospital Haslar and Clayhill Royal Navy Cemetery, Gosport, Hampshire The Royal Hospital Haslar dates from 1753. For over two hundred and fifty years Haslar served as one of main hospitals caring for sailors and marines of the Royal Navy and merchant services. Patients came from ships as well as from naval and seamen institutions in nearby Portsmouth and Gosport. The hospital closed as the last official military hospital in 2007. The Haslar Cemetery closed in April 1859 but the neighbouring Cl

Wakefield Collection: Cremation Records now available on Deceased Online

Records for both crematoria in Wakefield, Yorkshire have been added to the Deceased Online database Above: Pontefract Crematorium The two sets of crematoria records have been added to Deceased Online 's Wakefield Collection .  Wakefield district contains nineteen cemeteries and two crematoria. Many of the records go back to the mid and late 19th century when the cemeteries opened, and range across a wide geographical area. The full list of  Wakefield  cemeteries live on Deceased Online,  with opening dates in brackets,   is as follows: 1.  Altofts Cemetery  – Church Road, Altofts, Normanton  (1878)   2.  Alverthorpe Cemetery  – St Paul’s Drive, Alverthorpe, Wakefield  (registers from 1955) 3. Castleford Cemetery  – Headfield Road, Castleford  (1857) 4.  Crigglestone Cemetery  – Standbridge Lane, Crigglestone, Wakefield  (1882) 5. Featherstone Cemetery  – Cutsyke Road, North Featherstone  (1874) 6. Ferrybridge Cemetery  – Pontefract Road, Ferrybridge, P