Finding an ancestor’s burial place, maybe a surviving headstone or plaque, can be a very moving experience. If your 19th century ancestors lived and died in Greater London, actually finding them can be a difficult task.
During the 1950s burials in inner London were discontinued, at various dates, and the local parishes involved stopped maintaining parish burial registers. The burials moved from inner London out to other areas of Greater London. Non-denominational cemeteries were used, owned by commercial companies or local government bodies.
This book aims to help you find where your ancestors were buried in London. It includes a number of lists, giving you a pathway through the complicated maze of cemeteries, crematoria and records.
You can look up the local authorities in Greater London, as they were before 1965. For each of these, you can see the name of the current authority and the burial places in that area. For extra help, you can see the date that registers started for each burial place. It allows you to begin to identify where your search could start. A second list shows current non-denominational cemeteries and crematoria. In this list you can find where records are held, the date registers began and whether you can search the records. There are separate lists for the army, the navy and for Roman Catholic burials. If you have Jewish ancestors, this book includes lists for orthodox, reform and liberal burial places.
Originally compiled by Patricia S. Wolfson and revised by Cliff Webb, this is a valuable handbook for family historians and genealogists.
This 7th Edition was updated in 2005.