In the genealogy world you go to a lot of strange places. One of these for me is abandoned cemeteries. I always feel bad finding these places. Not only is a piece of history lost someone’s family member has been lost. I have a few cemeteries tied to my family that range from grass mowed, people visit to up on a hill where only a few people a year visit. I clean headstones as a freelance cleaner as well so I’ve seen places that had none of my family either.
Thanks for reading my bit of a rant there and I’d like to say one more thing if you find an abandoned cemetery (on public property be careful not to trespass) report it to your local historic society they may be able to help and try and help save history and people’s memory by using find a grave.
My mom recently retired from being a school teacher, and about 15 years ago she took a local myth of an overgrown graveyard behind a field and hunted it down. Took her class on a fieldtrip to it to collect rubbings of the headstones, to see how the slave graves were unmarked depressions in the ground, and eventually got an event together to tidy the place up.
Unfortunately it’s in an out-of-the-way place, so I doubt it’s still maintained.
The idea of a grave/cemetery being permanent is largely a US thing. In most of Europe, graves are rented for an extended period (between 10 and 100 years). After that, what little is left of the remains are removed and the plot can be used again.
Your experience with an abandoned graveyard is just closer to the standard culture in other parts of the works.
I’ve done a bit of research into this topic and started writing a blog post about it (that I’ll post someday… probably)
I haven’t looked into this part yet but I wonder are the remains cremated and the ashes given to a family member or is the body disposed of in another way?
