Subj : Re: Wakes
To   : NANCY BACKUS
From : JOE MACKEY
Date : Fri Aug 23 2019 06:11:38

   Nancy wrote --

>  JM> There is now no idea who is buried where there.  :(
> 
> Too bad there hadn't been a census taken of the graveyard previously,
> and kept at some local history library.... at least the knowledge would
> have been preserved to some extent...

  It was just an oral history. SFIK.  If anything were recorded its been
lost with the family dying off/ moving, papers tossed, etc.
  
> The funeral home, probably.... but the local family and town cemetaries
> were happening long before that... I've seen stones with dates in the
> 1600s and 1700s.... If you are talking about the large city cemeteries,
> then that could be true, though....

  At one time most burials were around the village church.  But over time
that property became full.
  I have read how over years old graves were opened, the skeletons removed
and new occupant placed there.  Over time where the bones were moved to is
forgotten.
  The ones who usually stayed in place were notable people, not the common
ordinary riff raff.
  Large city cemetery's, like today, are mostly from the Victorian era when
the dead were better respected and the modern funeral home, etc began.  

> And may also have followed from the vigils, sitting with the person as
> the life ebbed away...

  Very true.
  Joe
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5
 * Origin: Fido Since 1991 | QWK by Web | BBS.FIDOSYSOP.ORG (1:123/140)

.