Its sooooooo annoying

[Patti44]

I have been trying to find the burial plot of my mothers baby sister, I have the place and date etc, seen it on L M A registers,but the Vicar at the Church where she is has left and they have a temporay person, who has tried to look but cant find anything, he seems to think LMA have all the records and I wont be able to find out.,without paying quite abit for them to research it.It seems so unfair as I have been to other Places and they have let me look through the book and get the plot number.Has anyone else come up with this problem. I have just sent the another e mail saying how unfair I think it is,but dont hold out any hope.

[Peter Goodey]

Presumably you're talking about a churchyard but presumably not in Metropolitan London.

If you have seen an entry in a burial register, look at the LMA online catalogue and check for yourself whether there appear to be any records deposited for that church that might help. If there are, why do you think you have to pay them? You go and search in person. There is no entry fee! (yet).

What is it that you say is "unfair"?

[Patti44]

Yes its outside Met London, I did find the details in the Burial Register,that looks like a book,and I didnt see anything about Church records anywhere,I am only an amature not a proffesional researcher,so sometimes its not as easy for us.When I asked the LMA before they said I could have it researched for a fee,well I think its unfair that a local church does not have its own book,that can be looked at with the grave plots on,like others I have seen.

[arthurk]

That sounds like the standard LMA response: they can't/won't do quick look-ups or copies from registers, but refer people to their research service. It's often cheaper to engage a researcher yourself, or as Peter says, it's free to visit.

However, first of all it might be wise to find out if there is a record of grave plots anywhere for this church. In my experience, not all churches have these: sometimes there's a note in the burial register (which I see you've already looked at), or sometimes there's just a vague recollection in the back of someone's memory. The temporary minister may have thought of it already, but could you ask him/her to ask around the churchwardens or any longstanding members of the church to see if they might know of a plan? If there is one, I would think it's possibly more likely to be still at the church than the LMA, but it would probably still be worth checking the LMA catalogues to see if anything shows up.

Sometimes a Family History Society will produce a plan as part of recording memorials, but if there's no memorial to your aunt, this is unlikely to help.

Sorry if this is a bit pessimistic, but unfortunately churches' record-keeping isn't always what family historians would wish for.

Arthur

[Patti44]

Ok thank you,I will see if I can understand the LMA catalogue then.

[Peter Goodey]

Look for phrases like Grave Book, Burial Book*, Sextons's Book etc

*That's "book" - not "register"

[Jeuel]

You might be disappointed even if you know the plot. My ex and I went to find his gt grandmother's grave in Finchley Cemetery. We had a plot number and a kind attendant at the cemetery went to double check it was right - but when we got to the grave there was just a plain patch of grass, no sign of any grave at all.

[Patti44]

Yes thats dissapointing I know, we too went to 2 in Finchley and both were patches of grass,they were commoners burials, they didnt have any money years ago and thats what happened,and we did have a number too.You would think they could perhaps list the people on a board nearby that were there or something,its very sad to go and find that.

[Patti44]

Thanks Peter I will do that.