Find Ancestors

Hi im trying to find the grave for my husbands gr grandmother, Hannah Lawley died 1955 don valley district Yorkshire. She was believed to be buried at Thorne cemetery Doncaster but cannot find her.
Are they only registered for so long or is it the wrong cemetery ???

The Don Valley Registration District covers a large area so it is best to start with the nearest cemetery to where she lived (if you are not sure of her final address it is probably on the death certificate).

If you ring the council and give them her name and date of death they should be able to tell you where she is buried.

Kath. x

Not listed on deceased online.

Thanks kath and greyghost for your reply.
Michelle x

List of Doncaster Cemeteries
https://tinyurl.com/n8oyrxs

Record seach form
https://tinyurl.com/kdfgx78

When you say you can't find her, is that because you visited and looked for a headstone? Not all graves have one. There is always the possibility that the plot has been reused. If the family couldn't afford to purchase/lease a plot, then she could have been buried in a 'common grave' with other people who died roughly when she did. In that instance, there is a rarely a headstone listing names although there may be one giving the plot number.

Not listed on the Thorne Cemetery site

Your best bet is to get the death cert and ring the parks and cemeteries dept of the local council giving them the details from the cert

Thanks detective and shirley my father in law was 10 yrs old when hannah lawley died (his grandmother) and he said she was buried in thorne cemetery but he thought she never had a headstone so was wanting to know if there was a plot number for her ?
Shirley you know when you said not listed are they only listed for so many years ???
Thanks michelle :-)

It didn't say any time line Michelle

But even if it's a public grave with other unrelated persons the record would still exist

I was looking for one in Rochester Kent for 1921 and the local council was able to give me row and plot nos and the cemetery staff even put a yellow marker on the grass section of the unmarked grave so I could locate It

Councils keep very good records . I even got one for 1907 for the paternal grt grandmother in Charlton SE London some years ago

In both cases they were public graves and I got the info from the local council giving them the details from the death certs

Normally - if the burial register has survived, then an internment would have been listed. There is always the chance that the register has been lost or damaged in some way so that certain pages are illegible.

So Shirley

If there was no headstone and like detective said if no plot was purchased or leased and the grave has been reused , if hannah was buried in Thorne cemetery like my father in law believes there would be a record for this ?

Thanks Michelle :-)

Thanks detective

Just seen your post

Michelle :-)

Yes the records are there

As I posted both the ones I looked for are in unmarked public graves with other unrelated persons .
Both are municipal cemeteries and councils keep very good records .

May take them a few days to locate if they haven't digitised the records but achived the actual ledgers

The 1907 one that the council gave me I was also able to view the actual ledger at the cemetery lodge which the cemetery caretaker found very quickly .he also asked if I wanted to know the names of the other 7 buried in the grave. I didn't as was only interested in the grt grandma record.

So shirley ( hope im not getting on your nerves :-) )

Why is she not listed on the Thorne cemetery site ??

Don,t mean to be a pain Michelle :-D

When my father in law said she was buried there ??

In my experience online records are very rarely complete. This could be because not all records have been finished or it could just be human error and a record has been missed when transcribing them.

More likely (and no offence intended) your father-in-law could possibly be mistaken if he was only 10 years old when Hannah died.

A phone call to the council would be my first port of call.

Kath. x

Ok kath thanks for that :-D

For a burial as recent as 1955 the records should be with the Cemetery office. The staff usually look them up for you if you give the details you have and approximate date. Sometimes people want to be buried with a family member so they will check if there is space. The DOD from the Death cert will be enough. As someone has said, you may have the wrong cemetery and would need to check on the others too.
I believe some cemeteries don't reuse graves for a set number of years, say 50 or whatever.

Well there could be a memory mistake who knows

I would just do your own research with the local council

Not everything is online I,m afraid

Thanks all of you for your help .

Michelle :-)