Genealogy Chat

If you were christened and married in church, and died of renal dropsy, why would your wife bury you in an unconsecrated grave?

Have you tried asking your local vicar/priest? , most of them are pretty helpful, Steve in Chester.

was it cheaper? KIM

Hi, I had the same query and asked the sexton at Treorchy Cemetery where I was doing some hunting!Here goes. An unconsecrated grave was one that was not consecrated to a particular religion- so in that cemetery they had ones consecrated Catholic,others consecrated Church in Wales and the rest were unconsecrated ie not affiliated to a particular religion. The purchase certificate for the particular plot in question will tell you for definite if it was consecrated or not. Hope this is of some use to you! Sinead

People who commited suicide wer often buried in unconsecrated graves, the person you are asking about may have been in such pain that he took his own life, as this was reguarded as a "sin" then they would not be permited to be buried in a chuch graveyard. You did not state a date and the further you go back in time, this "rule" was upheld. Suicides were often buried face down at crossroads as it was belived that suicides became vampires or ghosts if they wer not buried in this way." they would keep digging downwards" and not be able to re-enter this world. Yours Chris

Hi, In Lancashire it was normal 'burying practise' to bury people of non-conformormist churches in unconsecrated graves - particularly Methodists. (I work in archives and come across this regularly - plus my own family were methodists in the 19th century) Amanda x