Unmarked Graves

[Lanzaman]

We have just been informed tht my wife's grandmother is buried in an unmarked grave and wonder why. She was apparently killed in a road accident.

Can anybody comment please.

Cheers, Lanzaman

[Julie Tyrell]

Unfortunately, this may be because the family couldn't afford a head stone.

Julie

[ChristineR]

Hardly any of my ancestors have a headstone. It all comes down to money - even to the present day there are plenty of graves around unmarked.

Christine :)

[Ladkyis]

I would think that far more people are buried without a marker than with one. We have just paid for an additional slope, as it is called, to go on a grave where there is no room to add names on the headstone and with three names it cost nearly 1500 pounds. The original stone cost 46 pounds in 1969 and that was expensive. So the reason is probably the cost.

[jeeb]

We have just been informed tht my wife's grandmother is buried in an unmarked grave and wonder why. She was apparently killed in a road accident.

Can anybody comment please.

Cheers, Lanzaman

Do you mean as the three above replies refer that your wife's grandmother has no gravestone or do you mean she is buried in an unrecorded plot? If it is that she has no gravestone then the main and most likely reason will be as already stated, the cost. A great many people are buried without a memorial and several of those that were have them removed later for various reasons, usually because of clearance of burial grounds for easy maintenance or simply because the headstone was considered unsafe.
Most churchyards & cemetries have a burial plan of graves, certainly those in the last 150 years, even those without a memorial stone should have a plot number. However many earlier graves did not have plot numbers, especially in the case of paupers and common graves and several of those that did do not survive. It was possible to reuse burial plots after only 50 years from the last burial but a recent Parliamentry debate lead by David Blunkett discussed this issue and the moralities of it. I believe it was suggested 100 years to be a more suitable time lapse.
Jeremy