General Chat

Just got off the phone to this cemetery, and was informed that to do a personal search of their registers would be £60 for up to 6 hours, even if you were only there for half an hour! Alternatively they will search for you, charging a tenner for each name! :-0

Has anyone actually paid to search at Manor Park, or paid a similarly excessive amount at another place? Most places I have been to offer this kind of service for free or at a much lower price.

All moans welcome! :-P

Matt

Don't blame you for having a moan - my local one will look up for free if you can give full name and DOD, or at least the year but £20 for a 20 year search for a full name. That could work out even more expensive than your personal search for £60 for 6 hours.

I'm still waiting to hear back from a different one about charges/access to records, and that enquiry was made months ago.

PS - thought your thread title was MOON alert and thought they had vampires in the Cem :-D

I have a list of names, and years of death (I even know the exact date for some of them), and they still charge £10 a go!

Detective - as for the £20 for 20 year search that actually seems reasonable when Manor Park also charge £15 just for a 3 year search! You may be right about vampires, the term "bloodsuckers" did spring to mind... LOL :-D :-D

Matt

I was shocked too when, a year or so ago, I phoned Wandsworth Cemeteries people enquiring about locating a grave. They did give me the cemetery I needed (free of charge) and phone number. When i phoned the New Battersea cemetery I was told of a similarly high search fee to the one you mention, Matthew, and the woman was curt and unhelpful, obviously not wanting to be asked any more questions!!

Quite frankly, I was gobsmacked at the cost, and that evening giving it some thought, I managed to convince myself that I must have made a mistake.
I phoned back the next day, at a different time, and, luckily, got a very nice man who said he'd do the search for me and phone me back. Which he did. No mention of money!!!!
Not only that but he asked for my address so he could send me a printed plan of the cemetery on which he'd highlighted the area where my relative's grave was!

Whether he was a family history enthusiast himself, I don't know, but talk about chalk and cheese!!!!

K

P.S. Most of my rellies are buried at East Finchley/Marylebone cemetery and the chap at Westminster cemeteries is very very helpful. Over past years I've phoned and e.mailed him on many occasions with enquiries and questions about my rellies' graves and plots, and I've never been charged a fee.

There seems to be a huge contrast in this fee business.

Nottingham City council charge £30 -00 per search per person per cemetery, they dont do free.

George

Birmingham City Council charge around 50 pounds too.

I phoned Greenwich some months and they looked up and rang back - no charge. I was able to give date of death etc.

Manor park use to charge £7 for a search
and free if you had the name and date of death

so i can see that thay have put up the price

Matthew if you do fine out any of the grave numbers that you are looking for
i can go into manor park cemetery and look for them for you and take a photo

and have you seen my thread on trying to fine
i have posted meany head stones from manor park cemetery
here is the link

http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards.page/board/ancestors/thread/1068062



East london charge £15
and as fare as i no City of London cemetery is still free
West Ham cemetery is also free


i think the truble is that thay now get a lot more people
wanting them to do lookup an this take up there working time
but still dont see why it has to cost so much money

I have been onto Ashford and Feltham Cemeteries this morning very helpfull and no charge for look up. Just waiting for Feltham one to get back to me.

I have a small book on Greater London cemeteries and crematoria by Cliff Webb

It tells you the dated there started and wether you can do seach your self, and how much it cost if any.

PP
I bet it's the same woman we spoke to!!
Not a very good representative is she.


K

I had marvelous cooperation too from Greenwich Council Some time a go I got the death cert of my paternal grt grandmother who died in 1907 just before my dad was born. Although she died in the German Hospital Dalston I knew the family lived in Charlton SE London where i hail from . I contacted the Greenwich Council Parks and Cemeterys Dept and gave them the details from her death cert, the next day they rang back with her burial details including her public grave record AND the mobile tel nos fro the Charlton Cemetery Supervisor . I did contact him and made arrangements to meet him at the cemetery where he looked in a big book at her grave ref and told me she was with 11 others!! even offered their names but as they were not related I declined. He took me and hubby to a grassed area and counted out the graves and then was able to pinpoint her grave and allowed me me put some flowers on the grass saying they would remove them when they had died off.

All in all I think Greenwich Council were tops. NOW whether they have subsequently realised they can charge for their serviced I dont know BUT if they do and still give what they gave me then I would pay.

Shirley

try this site
http://www.findagrave.com/index.html

What a lot of info. Thanks to all of you I am going to use the sites you mention. My grandmother was buried in Forest Gate, London and I may have her site number it would be wonderful to have a photo of her grave.
Her husband my grandfather was buried in Bow Road Cemetry near to Mile End Station, but I have been informed that it is no longer a cemetery so what happened to all the memorials etc, I cannot find them!

Any ideas anyone

Bridget in Spain

Hi Bridget,

I had a similar query, when I realised that many of mine would have been buried in St Mary's Paddington but the area was cleared for the construction of the Westway and Marylebone flyover some 40+ yrs ago.
I googled ( wasn't an easy find) but eventually found information telling me that the remains had been removed by Westminster Council (cemeteries) and put in a communal grave in another cemetery.

Once again, I called my helpful chap at Westminster cemeteries to ask him about this, giving him what info i had as he didn't know much about it, but promised he'd find out.
Well, a week later he phoned back with a lot of info, and apologised that he'd taken so long but he hadn't been able to locate the register of names of those who were moved. However, after much searching he'd found it stuck at the back of a safe and would I like him to look anything up.

I explained to him that there are many names I'm after, as my family lived in that area for several generations, and I was rather hoping to visit the communal grave in person one day when I'm in the UK, and also to look through the register.
No problem he said, since I'm not local, when I'm ready to visit just phone him first and he'll make special provision to extend the opening hours for me AND and have the register ready!!!
How about THAT!!!

K

COULD THE LOCAL COUNCIL HELP THEY KEEP CEMETARY RECORDS

Bridget,

Why not contact the borough council responsible for the area which would cover Bow Road Cemetery. They must know what happened to the remains of those buried there (it must be documented), just like my Paddington lot who had to be moved, and are now re-buried at Mill Hill, ref: my above thread.

Or google Bow Road Cemetery and see if any info to be found.

K x

I suppose it is because they don't employ somebody specifically to do the searching and when they are concentrating on that the job they have been employed to do is not being done.

Maybe, when enough people are wanting searches, they will have a committed searcher and it will become cheaper.