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Remembered Today:

Cemetery Registers


doogal

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Hi

I read an interesting thread a short while ago about cemetery registers.

Of course, now I want to read it in detail, can I find it???

I wish to find out a little more about what is, and what is not recorded in these registers, and if any are available to view that are not kept directly at each cemetery.

Any information gratefully recieved.

regards

doogal

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Doogal,

I've searched a few registers in our local county council offices. They have volumes dating back to when the cemetaries were first opened. Some can be searched via computer, but most are in large registers. They list Surname, Christian names, Address, place of death, date of death, date of burial, number of plot buried.

The best place I found was Pembroke, where they have a number to ring, and they can access all records through computer and usually find the one you're looking for within 10 minutes! Absolutely brilliant, I wish family history was always this easy. I found my Irish great-grandfather through them, he lived at Pembroke Dock, and sadly died aged 27 of pneumonia. I must have been the first member of the family to lay flowers at his grave since his wife left Pembroke in 1885.

Hope this helps,

Chris

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have the CWGC registers for Ireland if they are any help to you.

regards.

Tom.

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Doogal

Are you talking about cemetery registers as kept by each cemetery authority or are you talking about CWGC registers?

If the latter, I have all 1500 or so registers from both WW1 and WW2

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An army of volunteers is collating details of information from available Burial Registers on behalf the Federation of Family History Societies.

This is,of course, a mammoth task but when complete it will be a relatively easy way of tracking down"names" from a database,especially when the area is previously not known.

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Dear All,

Yes, initially, the thread I was searching for was related to the CWGC. Re-reading my post does show this as ambiguous - however, the additional info on cemeteries will be useful as my interest extends beyond the military.

I am curious as to the contents of the CWGC registers - beyond the fact that they hold details of soldiers in a particular cemetery, and as such reflect the online CWGC database.

For instance - are there any details on when and where certain parts of a concentration cemetery may have come from.

Unknowns - I've asked directly about this in the past, so am aware that no correlated/easily searchable database exists, but I am still curious as to just what/how the unknowns are recorded in these registers: per cemetery, are any Regimental details or dates recorded for a grave where they are known?

Apologies for these questions being essentially a repeat run of what I can recall of the earlier threads, but I've had no luck retracing my steps towards the two threads I initially came across a few weeks ago.

Thanks to everyone for the replies thus far - military and civilian cemeteries alike.

Highspen - is there a website for the Federation of Family History Societies?

regards

doogal

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Doogal

The only item of additional info in the CWGC registers for WW1 which is not on the net is the inclusion of a 'cause of death' for a small percentage of the names - only a small percentage and usually 'KiA', 'DoW' etc - sometimes a specific illness or other cause. This is ONLY a very small number of names (I stress that). This info does appear in CWGC printouts should you order one.

Unknowns are sometimes recorded at the end of a register - sometimes just the number but sometimes with a grave number but very rarely with any supplementary info (eg An Unknown Officer of the Black Watch). Some registers contain no Unknown info at all or sometimes incomplete data.

The introductions to the first editions of the registers SOMETIMES contain details of cemeteries which were cleared into the register cemetery and sometimes give numbers and nationalities of bodies involved. Not all registers have this info however.

Should you need specific info, I can do a check for you. As I said above, I have a complete set and I can also give accurate numbers of Unknowns from CWGC statistics. I have also transcribed the cleared cemetery info from all the France/Belgium registers which may be of help.

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Hi Terry,

Thanks for taking the time to answer - I owe you a bit of an apology for dredging this one up so soon/introducing my query in a piecemeal manner over a period of time (a vain attempt to boost my postings up to Captain status on the forum perhaps?! :ph34r: ).

To save any more, here is where I am at, with its context:

I have a full listing of the graves at Gommecourt British cemetery No2, from the CWGC website. Over the weekend I've been messing about in Excel and have set up the database so that it can show all graves in relation to one another, highlighting unknowns. When complete, it should provide a clickable map of the cemetery with knowns and unknowns included.

I was originally interested in a single soldier, but the history and events surrounding the whole unit have now begun to take an equal share of my interest.

These are soldiers from the Duke of Wellington's (2nd West Riding) Regiment who fought between Bucquoy and Rossignol Wood in March 1918. The 1/9th DLI fought directly alongside them also, and a significant number of soldiers from both have ended up in this cemetery, some of them spaced between a reasonable number of unknown graves.

An equally significant number from the Duke of Wellington's Regiment from this action are on the Arras Memorial for the missing, and I have drifted into something of a "mini-project", where I wish to explore the possibilities of any of these missing being amongst those at Gommecourt. Whilst ultimately I don't believe I can necessarily "prove" anything, the idea of getting some idea of "probable", has now become interesting and is the nominal aim of the project.

So, to cut a very long story short - I am trying to get hold of any recorded information about the unknown graves between V.A.1 and V.B.9. (I have a total of 12), and also between V.D.1 and V.D.11 (I have a total of 6) - especially those noted as NCO's if any details at all are kept, and any descriptions of how this concentration cemetery was created. Now, I am acutely aware that there may well be no details at all recorded -especially in light of your post here, but before the now inevitable, but as yet unplanned trip to France, I hope to get hold of as much information as I can.

Sorry for the lengthy pre-amble to the short question, but I didn't think it fair to ask without putting a reasonable context to it this time.

Whether details exist or not, many thanks for your help on this already, and on the previous threads.

regards

doogal

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Doogal

The 1929 register for Gommecourt British Cemetery No.2 does not add much. It states...

Total Unknowns = 681 - consisting of 668 UK, 1 Australian, 9 NZ and 3 Totally Unknown Commonwealth.

The latest CWGC statistics revise the total number of Unknowns to 682.

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