2, Finding Burials from PRs (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Thursday, June 20, 2013, 02:50 (4176 days ago) @ Jefff

2. Re where people are buried, yes usually a person would have been buried within the Churchyard of their own Parish Church at which the Funeral Service took place and as named on the PR. Most if not all of the CofE Churches had their own adjoining cemetaries aka Churchyards, certainly Drybrook Holy Trinity and Ruardean do. Ruardean I know is still in use, this recent survey map etc may well help you.
http://www.forum.forest-of-dean.net/index.php?id=33052
http://www.forest-of-dean.net/downloads/Miscellaneous/Ruardean_Churchyard_Burial_Layout...

If you search this website and forum for "Ruardean churchyard" etc you'll find other items and threads referring to the memorials within the Churchyard which may hopefully be of interest to you, ditto regarding other Churchyards in your tree.

eg for Drybrook this thread should interest you, similar questions to yours and an overhead photo of Drybrook Holy Trinity Church and Churchyard too !, it's great when technology works ! :-)
It looks very much like "Janger" aka Janet is worthwhile you sending a direct email to, I do hope she's still active on the forum altho apparently she's not visited for a month or two.
http://www.forum.forest-of-dean.net/index.php?id=29816

Also on this site is this layout information & photos regarding burials and memorial transcriptions at Ruardean Congregational Churchyard. I'm uncertain at this point where this is, but if not already done so I suggest you browse it in case your ancestors are listed.
http://www.forest-of-dean.net/?Memorial_Inscriptions_Ruardean_Congregational

Unfortunately space restrictions within Church graveyards means that older graves are sometimes disturbed to make way for new ones, or if the Churchyard is full then burials occur further away. Nowadays I believe, for example, most if not all Cinderford Burials are at the municipal Yew Tree Brake Cemetary on the edge of town, usually after a Service at the person's own Church within Cinderford itself.
I do not know what happened for the smaller nonconformist Chapels, if they did have burial grounds one wonders what happened to them if the Chapel was subsequently converted to housing as has often happened ??.
See this thread ref a Ruardean Chapel..!
http://www.forum.forest-of-dean.net/index.php?id=22555

Or perhaps the small Non Conformist Chapels would use "non-consecrated" ? sections of other established cemetaries in the area, again other members can answer these points better than me, please. For the main Churches such as Drybrook Holy Trinity I would hope that contacting them in advance will provide answers in this respect, one hopes they will have copies of any available burial plans. Past surveys for some local Churches are available on cd from GlosFHS, other forum members may be able to access these if you enquire ?. As you say some PRs quote Reference numbers at the bottom, these are indeed often guides to identify location of specific grave plots within the graveyard of the Church to which the Burial PR refers, but whether anyone still knows what these notes mean is another question, there was no common "British Standard" approach to this. Availability & accuracy of such plans will vary between Churches. Sadly the upkeep of Churches is a very expensive business and some Churchyards are not always in a good state and become overgrown etc, also Memorials become weathered and eventually unreadable, or even breakup, so perhaps best be prepared for a difficult hunt.

There are "Find a Grave" type websites for the UK but I've not yet found any with references to FoD Churches within them, I think they're more suited to the Cities with their much bigger municipal cemetaries. Here is the cd I mentioned;
http://gfhs.org.uk/products-page/cddvd/monumental-inscription-2003-2/

You mention finding the Grave of Edward Stockham, this is the relevant PR:

Record_ID: 93501
Entry_Number: 410
Year: 1891
Month: May
Day: 17
Surname: STOCKHAM
Forenames: Edward
Residence: Ruardean
Age_at_death: 50
Officiating_Minister: G.H. Kirkham Curate
Event: Burial
Cause_of_death:
Memoranda:
Notes:
Register_Reference: P109 IN 1/13
Page_No: 52
Parish_Chapel: Drybrook
Soundex: S325

I'm sure this PR is clearly a Burial which took place, probably after a Funeral Service, at the "main" CofE Church in Drybrook, namely Holy Trinity on Harry Hill. If it had been at a NonConformist Chapel I'm sure it would clearly state so. However I'd be gratefull if Slowhands or anyone else more qualified than I could please confirm this belief ?
There are no notes to indicate where the grave might be within the graveyard.

I'm afraid its geting late so must be off, I do hope this helps if only a little(but hopefully more), and look forward to chatting again tomorrow.

Jeff.