Week 38 (Sept. 16-22): Symbol

The prompt for Week 38 is 'Symbol' which links to last week's theme of 'Tombstone' and has me thinking more about my collection of family headstone photographs and especially the symbolism included in the various monuments.  While the majority of the examples in my collection are fairly plain, there are still many symbols included.

The following are some of the more common symbols found on gravestones and their meanings.

ANCHOR - a symbol of hope, or the deceased was a seaman.
ANGEL - a guide to Heaven.
ARCH - symbolizing a triumphant entry into Heaven or victory over death.
ARROW - symbolizing mortality or martyrdom.
BEEHIVE - symbol of abundance in the Promised Land or piety or domestic virtue or faith.

BELL - a symbol of religious faith or religion.
BIRD - a symbol of eternal life, spirituality, Messenger of God, or peace.
BOOK - a symbol of the Divine Word or the deceased's lifetime accomplishments.
BURNING FLAME - a symbol of eternal life or resurrection.
BUTTERFLY - a symbol of resurrection.
CELTIC CROSS - a symbol of faith and eternity.
CIRCLE - a symbol of eternity, life never ending.
CLOUDS - a symbol of the Divine abode, Heaven.
CROSS - a symbol of faith and resurrection. Many military markers, in particular for Veterans of World War I, have a cross etched into the gravestone.
CROWN - a symbol of glory of life after death.
DOVE – a symbol of love, purity, resurrection and or the Holy Spirit.
EAGLE - many gravestones of Civil War veterans were engraved with images of eagles.
FINGER (pointing downward) - a symbol of calling the earth to witness.
FINGER ( pointing upward) - symbolizing the pathway to Heaven or the deceased found Heavenly reward.
FISH - symbolizing spiritual nourishment, faith, or deceased was a Christian.
FLOWER - a symbol of immortality. 

FLYING BIRD - a symbol of rebirth.
GARLAND - symbolizes victory over death.
GRIM REAPER - a symbol found on many early gravestones, meaning the inevitability of death.
HANDS (CLASPED) - a symbol meaning farewell and the hope of meeting again in eternity.
HARP - a symbol of hope.
HEART - a symbol of love, devotion, joy, and/or mortality.
HOURGLASS - a symbol of the swift passage of time, as in the shortness of life on earth.
LAMB - a symbol meaning innocence; used primarily on an infant's or a child's gravestone.
LILY - a symbol of purity and/or chastity.
MYRTLE LEAVES - a symbol of undying love and/or peace.
OAK LEAVES - a symbol of faith and virtue and/or endurance.
OBELISK - a symbol quite popular during the 1880's through the 1930's, meaning rebirth, connection between earth and Heaven.
OLIVE BRANCH - a symbol of peace, forgiveness, one's humanity.
OPEN GATES - a symbol of afterlife and the deceased's soul entering into Heaven.
PYRAMID – a symbol meaning resurrection, eternal life, enlightenment, spiritual attainment.
RAINBOW – a symbol of union, fulfillment of the promise of resurrection.
ROPE CIRLE - a symbol of eternity.

ROSE - a symbol of love, victory, triumph, and/or purity.
SCYTHE - symbol of a life cut short, death, or the final harvest.
SHEAF of WHEAT - a symbol of old age, a fruitful life.
SKULL - a symbol used in the early to mid-1800's representing mortality and or penitence. A winged skull meant that the deceased ascended into Heaven.
SLEEPING CHERUB - a symbol of innocence used primarily on an infant's or a child's gravestone.
SWALLOW – a symbol of motherhood, the spirit of children, or a symbol of consolation.
SWORD - symbolizes the deceased's military service.
SWORDS (CROSSED) - symbolizes that the deceased died in battle.
TREE – a symbol of life, knowledge, the fall of man through sin, or human frailty.
TREE STUMP - symbol of a life interrupted.
TRUMPET - symbol announcing the resurrection of the deceased's soul entering into Heaven.
URN - symbol for the soul, immortality or penitence.
WHEEL - symbolizes the cycle of life, enlightenment, spiritual power.
WREATH of ROSES - a symbol of Heavenly joy and bliss.

Week 37 (Sept. 9-15): Tombstone

The theme for Week 37 is 'Tombstone', and the information to be found on tombstones and in cemeteries cannot be discounted.  From visiting cemeteries in person to finding online cemetery records to uncovering photos of headstones, I have had some wonderful finds.

The photograph above is the Mulholland family plot in Eurobin, Victoria.  The plot includes two main headstones and several plaques.

The main headstone is for my great great grandfather David Mulholland who died 10 April 1902, age 71 and his wife Eliza Jane who died 30 October 1925, age 95.  Also included on the headstone are three infant children - Samuel Thomas, died 28 April 1879, age 3 months ; Margaret died 5 September 1885 age 10 years, and an unnamed infant son who died 26 January 1887 age 10 days.

The second, smaller headstone is 'erected to the memory of the beloved children of David and Jane Mulholland who died at Boggy Creek.'

Sadly, the three children named on the headstone all died as infants within a few weeks of each other - Henry Mulholland, died 29 January 1872 aged 4 years 8 months, Margaret Jane Mulholland who died 2 February 1872 aged 6 years 4 months and Thomas Mulholland who died 14 February 1872 aged 1 year 2 months.  A stark reminder of the perils of childhood and how disease could carry off several family members in rapid succession - all three died of diphtheria.

At the Cemetery

Headstones and cemetery records can be incredibly useful records to find.  The information found on headstones can be remarkably varied in content, with anything from a simple name to the details of parents, spouse, children and dates and places of birth and death.  Sometimes finding one relative in a cemetery leads to the discovery of several more, with whole generations of family all buried in the same location.  Over the years I have had some great finds in cemeteries that have helped me overcome brick walls and the loss of other records. 

 
As digitization of cemetery records and photographing of headstones becomes increasingly common, we are able to access from home even more records.  While nothing can replace actually visiting an ancestor’s grave in person, finding records I cannot visit myself available online is a definite bonus.  I have found online the cemetery records of a number of relatives who lived overseas, whose graves I am unlikely to be able to visit for some time, if ever.  Like so many other researchers, I owe a debt to those who have given their time to photograph headstones and transcribe cemetery records.

I have been lucky enough to acquire photographs of the headstones of many family members, some during personal visits and others sent by relatives or located online through sites like Find-A-Grave or BillionGraves.  The quality and amount of information on them varies a lot, as does the legibility and the state of preservation of the headstone.  It is worth noting that not all tombstones actually date from the time the gravesite was actually used - the stones themselves could be installed at a much later date by relatives, or be replacements for older stones which have been damaged or destroyed.

 
One particular headstone I have photographed was in extremely good condition, and commemorated several family members from a couple of generations.  The stone probably dates from the time of death of the last person included - was there an older tombstone in place at some time that has now been replaced, or is this a more 'general' tombstone that commemorates several family members buried in the area over time??  Who erected this stone, and where did they obtain the information they have included on it?  I need to delve into the cemetery records for this particular tombstone to find out more, and confirm the accuracy of the records, especially the older names and dates.

#52Ancestors - Week 46 - Tombstones

Tombstones and memorial plaques can be a hugely exciting find for any genealogist, and many cemeteries today have websites where researchers can locate burial details, headstone and memorial transcriptions and even photographs of the headstones and memorials themselves.

Finding the grave of an ancestor and obtaining a photo of the tombstone can provide an extremely varied amount of information.  Some tombstones are a virtual essay of information, like the memorial plaque below for the Pike family of Gedding Mill.  It not only gives names and dates of both parents but also details of all their children, including a son killed in action in WW1.

 

Other headstones are less helpful, with scant details and weathered, unreadable script.  The grave below has no headstone as such, with the surname 'Pummeroy' simply inscribed on the border of the grave.

 

 

Sometimes one tombstone contains details of several burials, either covering a family plot or multiple burials in a single grave.  The tombstone below details several burials in a family plot, including David and Jane Mulholland and three of their children who died as children : Henry aged 4 years 8 months, Margaret aged 6 years 4 months and Thomas aged 1 year 2 months.

 

Amongst my family photos I have a number of tombstones and memorial plaques, many of which I have obtained online from cemetery sites in areas I have not been able to visit in person.  These are a huge boon for a genealogist who is mostly researching overseas with limited opportunities to travel, and it is always exciting to find another cemetery record available.

 

Digital Churchyard Mapping Project for the Church of England

The Church of England has launched a new project to map all its churchyards using laser equipment.  They have partnered with surveying company Atlantic Geomatics, who will map Church of England churchyards using backpack-mounted laser scanners, as well as photographing the headstones.  The resulting records will be published on a new website, where they will enable family historians to discover where their ancestors are buried.

Bishop Andrew Rumsey, lead Bishop for church buildings said: “This impressive national project will make a huge difference to those researching family history, as well as easing the administrative burden on parishes.  It will improve management of burial grounds, and make information more fully accessible than ever before, supported by additional services by subscription for those wishing to go further.  It will soon be possible to visit almost any Anglican burial ground in the country and see in real time the location of burial plots. For those researching at distance in the UK or overseas, the digital records will place detailed information from churchyards at their fingertips.”

The project aims to survey the majority of the Church of England’s 19,000 burial grounds by 2028.

The website, which is due to launch in spring 2022, will combine data on burials and biodiversity data on the plants and animals in the churchyards.  It is anticipated the site will provide free to access for Church of England parishes, with additional services available to subscribers. 

After a successful pilot project which mapped the churchyards of All Hallows Church in Kirkburton and Emmanuel Church in Shelley, both in the Diocese of Leeds, the programme has now successfully mapped the churchyard of St Bega in Bassenthwaite in the Diocese of Carlisle.

The live links to the records on these two pilot studies can be found here:

• Kirkburton
• Shelley

Find A Grave - the Good and the Bad

Find-A-Grave has been active for more than 20 years, first appearing online way back in 1995. Originally it consisted of records of celebrities and their burial sites and was created by Jim Tipton, an American with a passion for visiting the graves of the rich and famous.

As the site grew it expanded to include the graves of non-celebrities and moved from the United States to the rest of the world.

As the popularity of the site took off Tipton sold the Find A Grave to Ancestry. The site now contains more than 75 million photos and over 170 million burial records.

The vast majority of contributors on Find A Grave have the best of intentions — to help others. At its best, the site can be a boon for Family History researchers.  Being able to view the grave/headstone of a relative buried overseas or in a place we cannot easily access ourselves is a huge treat.  That this website is completely free makes it even better.  Several times I have been delighted to find a relative has a memorial on Find-A-Grave, complete with dates and details.  Always I am amazed at the generosity of people out there, giving their time to help make researching easier for others.

Within the Find-A-Grave community, however, there has emerged a small group of users who seem more motivated by competition. The top contributors have added over 200,000 memorials each, and there are some who have over a million each.

Issues have arisen with the webpage of users - all volunteers - who in their haste to add to their count of memorials, have forgotten that not everyone wants their recently deceased loved ones to have an online memorial, especially one added and controlled by a complete stranger.  In the worst cases, a Find-A-Grave obituary has been posted online before all the individual's family members have even been notified.  Then there are issues of accuracy - and how to get inaccurate information corrected of removed.

Several suggestions have been made to create a moratorium on non-family-members posting memorials for the recently-deceased on Find A Grave for at least some time to give the families of those involved a chance to deal with a loved one’s death.  To date no steps seem to have been made in this direction.

 

 

Church Heritage Record Announces New Project

It has just been announced that all Church of England burial ground records will be available to search within five years under an ambitious new laser-scanning survey scheme.  Records of the burial grounds for two West Yorkshire churches – All Hallows’ Church in Kirkburton and Emmanuel Church in Shelley – are now available online, and the Church plans to survey all 15,000 burial grounds by 2025.

Nick Edmonds, the Church of England’s senior media officer, said: “It’s a system that has potential for enormous growth and future usage.  It can help people with their family history and accessing burial grounds that they didn’t know about before."  Each burial record will include the name of the deceased, their burial date, their age at death and a photograph of the grave.

The databases will be available via the Church Heritage Record.  Currently the Church Heritage Record website contains over 16,000 entries on church buildings in England covering a wide variety of topics including architectural history, archaeology, art history and the surrounding natural environment. The website is still currently a work in progress and is by no means complete.

The Church will provide £250,000 towards the project and has received the same amount from Historic England, which has also provided spatial data records to support the project.  The scanning also has ecological benefits, by measuring the growth of trees and plants in the graveyards.  It will also help church authorities identify where empty space is available for new burials.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 8 - At the Cemetery

Headstones and cemetery records can be incredibly useful records to find.  The information found on headstones can be remarkably varied in content, with anything from a simple name to the details of parents, spouse, children and dates and places of birth and death.  Sometimes finding one relative in a cemetery leads to the discovery of several more, with whole generations of family all buried in the same location.  Over the years I have had some great finds in cemeteries that have helped me overcome brick walls and the loss of other records.

As digitization of cemetery records and photographing of headstones becomes increasingly common, we are able to access from home even more records.  While nothing can replace actually visiting an ancestor’s grave in person, finding records I cannot visit myself available online is a definite bonus.  I have found online the cemetery records of a number of relatives who lived overseas, whose graves I am unlikely to be able to visit for some time, if ever.  Like so many other researchers, I owe a debt to those who have given their time to photograph headstones and transcribe cemetery records.

I have been lucky enough to acquire photographs of the headstones of many family members, some during personal visits and others sent by relatives or located online through sites like Find-A-Grave or BillionGraves.  The quality and amount of information on them varies a lot, as does the legibility and the state of preservation of the headstone.  It is worth noting that not all tombstones actually date from the time the gravesite was actually used - the stones themselves could be installed at a much later date by relatives, or be replacements for older stones which have been damaged or destroyed.

One particular headstone I have photographed was in extremely good condition, and commemorated several family members from a couple of generations.  The stone probably dates from the time of death of the last person included - was there an older tombstone in place at some time that has now been replaced, or is this a more 'general' tombstone that commemorates several family members buried in the area over time??  Who erected this stone, and where did they obtain the information they have included on it?  I need to delve into the cemetery records for this particular tombstone to find out more, and confirm the accuracy of the records, especially the older names and dates.