General Chat

I've just learned my grandmother was not buried in the Parish church graveyard, but cremated & interred somewhere else. How do I find where? Thank you, anyone!

The chances are she’s buried in a Municipal Cemetery closest to her home address.
You could look on https://www.deceasedonline.com to see if there’s an entry, otherwise you’d need to contact the council Parks & Cemetery department. They may make a charge.

Is there a chance that she could be buried in a family plot, either her parents or husband’s if he predeceased her?

If cremated, are you sure that she was interred? By which I presume you to mean that her ashes were placed in a small casket and buried.

Consider other possibilities.
It could be that her ashes were spread in a Garden of Remembrance? Or in a woodland glade? Or (as in the case of my father) spread on the Thames.

If the ashes were handed over to her executor or family, then there will be no official record.

That’s a good point Inky1.

One entry on deceasedonline gives a date of death, date of cremation & a date of burial. However, the burial was in the local churchyard which Bonnie, in her search, has ruled out.

There’s also another record where the remains were collected by a relative. Goodness knows where they ended up.

Within the last 12 months, reports in an online local newspaper have said that caskets of ashes have been left on the Chancel steps in a church, and another found buried on a beach.

Track down the entry in the cremation register to see who organised the cremation. The crematorium might be able to give further advice.

Thank you all. I thought maybe there was a Register of Burials/internment like the BMD records. ?

No. All records would be held locally (or at an archive) to the event.
Although some are on line, most are not.

Bonnie,

Do you know that the churchyard does not have a Garden of Remembrance, where ashes are buried?
Many old churchyards are closed for full burials, but will accept cremated remains.


It would be worth checking the records of the crematorium.

I know of at least one, where they keep a note of where ashes are interred. I don't know if this is routinely recorded or only if the information is volunteered.
This was not always done at this crematorium, but in 2013 I was able to log information about my brother, who had died many years before.