Genealogy Chat

At our family grave in East Finchley,London we have 3 adults two children, 1 pot of ashes and they told us two more burials allowed. Sheila

Joan, No problem answering that question was going to say why thought my thread would start getting too long(as they often do). This is a great uncle of mine who came from a family who had money then when the two sons were giving the businesses one drank it dry and the other gambled the rest, this strange behaviour was from one of their sons & was due to the fact that it was seen as a disgrace on the family if they did not have a big funeral and their own grave, to end this very strange tale I went looking for the graves, had to go into the office in the Cemetry as I could not find them, yet I had the plot numbers etc., turns out there wasnt one headstone put on any of the graves this sounds strange but it did not matter the family showed their money at the funeral and thought nobody would notice afterwards, by the way these were the Irish part of the family. Kate you are definetly right about that 6foot under thing I think that was supposed to be done for health reasons but if it ever really existed it certainly doesn't now. Pat x

We have hubbies Grandpa in a public grave in London c1919 there are seven others in with him. I think they were short of space at the time owing to the flu epidemic. Sue

Thank you all . Pat I wont go into your answer tho curious, as to why yours bought graves. It looks as tho Im going to have to ring the churchyard concerned Thank you Joan

I recently found out that the 'six-feet-under' thing about burials is untrue. In certain conditions, soils etc, a person can be buried only 2ft below the surface. No doubt this makes it easier to fit 3 or 4 in a grave in a relatively short time.

Joan, Depends what sort of grave and where it is situated as different graveyards/cemetries have different rules. Both answers are right but there can be upto 5 people buried in a "private family plot" i.e. a plot bought by a person for a family, 3 could well be the norm especially in older graveyards. Funny I found all this out through one of my ancestors who had this habit of buying graves, some have 1 person in them, 1 has 3 and 2 others have 5 people???? Pat x

Maz and Brenda Thanks Joan

I hae record of the family grave and there are 5 people in it the date range from the 1890's upto 1951 after which it was full nowaday it seems to be four or in the case of my in laws grave two Bren

how many people can be buried in an average grave, ? a personal reason for asking. Joan