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Compliments of:  Anne Cole


For anyone who needs to know, this is an explanation of the difference 
between the various records available:

There are well over 600 churches in Lincolnshire with Churchyards.
Recordings of the MIs (inscriptions on the gravestones) began in the 
early 1980s and almost every parish churchyard has now been recorded. 
Some are now being recorded again for various reasons.

More or less every church once had a churchyard in which people were
buried. Many churchyards have now been cleared of graves and a "faculty
file" for these parishes should have been deposited at Lincolnshire
Archives listing the graves that were removed. This can vary from a simple
list of names to a full transcription of all the gravestones that were
removed.

The parish register burials record details of all the people who were
buried in the churchyard - but all those buried there will not have had a
grave stone or a surviving stone.

The parish registers give varying information but do not normally give the
names of relatives apart from one or both parents. After 1813 the names of
parents did not have to be given in the parish registers. MIs on the other
hand may be more useful. Ages could be given on stones dating back as far
as the late 17th century. Relatives other than parents may be buried in
the same grave. The date of death is usually given on the gravestone
whereas the parish register gives the date of burial and sometimes the
date of death as well.

Around the 1870s Cemeteries began to be used as churchyards filled up.
Even small villages may have a cemetery - particularly those that did not
have a parish church. For instance, Sturton by Stow is in the parish of
Stow and did not have an ancient parish church. There are people buried in
the churchyard at Stow who lived in Sturton, but both Stow and Sturton
also have cemeteries. These cemeteries are however an extension of the
churchyard rather than large cemeteries with their own burial registers.

Large towns such as Lincoln, Louth, Grantham, Boston, Spalding etc. have
large cemeteries where people from a wider area were buried. These
cemeteries also have their own burial registers. The MIs from most of
these large cemeteries have been recorded, and the burial registers from 
a number of them have also been published.

Thus four different kinds of records will be found among our publications.
Churchyard MIs, parish burial registers, cemetery MIs and cemetery burial
registers.

I hope this goes some way to explaining what is available.

Anne


*** Last revised: 20-May-2002 ***