ALL SOULS - CEMETERY VISITS VERSUS CREMATION

So many people are being cremated now. I think it's about affordability and mobility.  So many people have moved from what was once the family home town that visiting cemeteries also seems to be passe. No more going to clean the grave.  A cemetery might notice that no one visits and decide they can recycle your ancestor, dig up or move or destroy the grave. And sell it again. Thought it was permanent.  Find out it's temporary.  Or they might want to hit you or your family up for more money. It happens.

I currently live near a cemetery where it would seem most people are not forgotten.  You see whole Christmas trees on some graves. Flowers in the little holders in the crypt. 

Is this all for the LIVING?

Very occasionally I walk around a cemetery just looking at the carved tomb stones.  I know obits lie.  This week I looked at a couple that belong to people who were horrible in life but the obit mentions all the loving they gave and got.

Cremation does away with the bed board - his and her - married persons tombstone. That gives the impression they are resting together in eternity when in real life they had terrible fights and probably should never been married before. And despite belief systems that marriage ends upon death and they have separate heavenly rests.

I haven't made up my own mind about the disposal of my earthly body.  I'm still attached to it.  I know I don't want to be dropped into the sea.

C 2020 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy 

MEMORIAL DAY - DOES ANYONE VISIT CEMETARIES ANY MORE? CREAMATION ANYONE?

A few months back I attended a short introduction meeting to a well regarded pre-needs service that features no frills cremation.  Years ago when I first heard of cremation, along with first hearing about Hinduism and reincarnation, I thought it made sense as an option.   With the cost of funerals and burials outrageous (I was quoted $25,000 average to be buried in the same town my parents are - were - for much less) it is more the ONLY OPTION for many, including me.  As it turns out the cost of this pre-paid no frills cremation in a much larger more expensive city than that town is far less that $5000.  I had been quoted double that for cremation in the smaller town.

My feeling is that when my time comes nobody is going to travel to my funeral or to see a stone in a cemetery.  Wouldn't it be better to just have my urn (or in this case a wood memory box) shipped somewhere or better yet, to someone who will then spread my ashes?

But you know, as a genealogist, someone who checks into FIND A GRAVE as a resource, as well as tombstone projects, cemetery records, and burial records, to accept being so - so - disappeared - is a thought.

What I did not want was a burial at sea.  Romantic a notion it is I've spent little time on boats and generally expect to get sea sick.  I love the view of the ocean, but no, I would only want my ashes to be spread in view of the ocean, not in it. 

And really, I can imagine the memory box with my ashes in it, turning up at a Garage Sale, or stashed in a moldering basement, or, if you've seen the funny film, MEET THE PARENTS, sabotaged by a cat as a litter box.  (!)
To go back to the beginning of this story though, this recent inquiry of funeral costs started because I called a cemetery to find out if a burial record I had could be confirmed.  Was there a tombstone and what was the plot number should I come visit.  The cemetery asked me to send the death certificate that stated that the burial had taken place there.  They said there had been a flood but basically, they would look into it but could not identify the burial as is.  They even said that perhaps there had been an "illegal" burial which was that relatives would have buried the person in the middle of the night there... I doubted that, as  there was the county death certificate stating the name of the funeral home and the priest and the cemetery.

While I was on the phone, I asked what it might cost, if the grave was located and did not have a stone, to put a simple stone on it.  I was shocked when I was told the cost would be $10,000. 

Sorry but $10,000 is for a college education, a business start-up, a newer used car.  I personally wouldn't spend that much on a wedding.

Still, I thought that with dozens of descendants alive, maybe they would want to pitch in for the tombstone. 

There are so many forgotten people.  The woman who was buried, probably legally, whose grave was so poor as to never have had a stone, or perhaps that was washed away in a flood, died young and horribly, with young children in the house.  Today, dead since the 1920's, she is the great mother of two, the grandmother of two, the great grandmother of several...  Only her DNA survives.


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THE LIMITATIONS OF TOMBSTONE PROJECTS - THERE ARE BURIALS THAT HAVE NO TOMBSTONES

I have very mixed feelings about tombstone projects. 

Volunteers go through cemeteries, take the information down off the tombstone - sometimes photographing - and put it on the information up on the world wide web - the Internet for anyone who uses the net to access. 

To me this can be culturally insensitive and as I see it, no graveyard that allows it is sacred.  Some cultures do not allow picture taking of the living, believing that this takes some of a person's essence or soul and some see tombstones as ancestral and even where the soul rests.  THE TOMBSTONE CENSUS TAKERS SEEM TO EASILY GAIN PERMISSION or DO NOT CARE about these things.  It makes me question what paying for a sacred space or privacy in death is all about.

The tombstone project volunteers put information up that is less than 70 years old and the US government thinks of 70 years as the privacy zone - thus the 1940 census was just revealed and records in many states are sealed for the same reason - privacy.

Some people have tombstones that have been carved with the name of the spouse who isn't dead yet. This communicates information such as the name of the living person and that they have been widowed.  Not private.  In some places, not safe at all.

I can't even get into all the ways the information can be used by identity thieves.

MAYBE THE WORST THING ABOUT TOMBSTONE PROJECTS is that they give the FALSE IMPRESSION that the burials with tombstones are all the burials in that cemetery.  YOU SHOULD STILL CONTACT CEMETERIES IF YOU ARE TRYING TO FIND RELATIVES, and the Death Record of that person should record if they were buried and where, or if they were cremated.  So don't use tombstone information without the death record for your genealogy.

As funerals and cemeteries and tombstones are more expensive, I suspect more people will be going with cremation in the future, unless their religion forbids it.

Please be aware that some cemeteries have no tombstones, or at least many that have been eroded or stolen.  There is no national law that says you have to buy one. Many cemeteries have about 2/3rds of their burials unmarked.  This can be because no one ever bought a tombstone or because more than one person is in the tomb.  Check the rules and regulations for the city, county, or state about this, but in some places a purchased tomb site allows two burials, one atop the other.  (In goes the destitute child or the ex wife!)

Also check into the religious beliefs about burials which may differ because a person is Muslim or Jewish, as examples.

I HAVE FOUND A NUMBER OF TOMBSTONES THAT WERE CARVED WITH INCORRECT INFORMATION, including misspellings of names, variations of the name the person was born with being very common.  This can give you the impression you have not found the person you're looking for. 

Finally, the birth date may not be accurate.  In some times and places the date on the tombstone is the date the person was BAPTISED, and the death date, the date they received LAST RITES.  Really!