Locate a Grave

[kat2206]

Hi All, I do hope that you will be able to help me. I am currently starting my family tree and on my mothers side, everything is fine and going well. However, on my fathers side is a totally different story...

My dads mother died in a very mysterious fire when he was a baby, he was brought up by his grandfather. We are trying to locate her grave but obviously my dad doesnt know anything about her, her date of birth etc, only her name and where she lived when she died. We have tried contacting the archives in our area and they need to know these details, such as date and place of birth before helping us.

Is there anyway of locating her grave without these details, I have thought to phone all the churches in the area that she lived to see if they have records of her grave/date of death?

All we have is her name and approximate year of death...

[jackthehat]

There may be some tragedy that you both need to prepare for rather than a straightforward death............?

Suicide by burning the house down.... Perhaps Jennie wasn't mentally stable..........she'd just had a baby.....Suicide by burning the house down....that sort of thing (sorry if that seems overly dramatic) perhaps that's why the older generations won't speak of it...?

Family history throws up and whole array of surprises.............not all of them pleasant, I'm afraid.

[jackthehat]

^ Sorry for that..............I changed the order of my typing and obviously didn't tidy up enough after I'd cut-and-pasted..........

[dothawkes31]

there will no douub be a lot of information on the house fire and Jenny's tragic death in the local Spalding newspaper, it would have probably been covered over a number of weeks including the funeral and the coroners inquest. It probably would have been in a county paper too which you will be able to look up in the Local Studies Library in Spalding. The burial would probably have been in the graveyard of the Church they were married in, there are at least 4 possibles in Spalding, but it is also possible she was buried in the civic cemetary, which you can easily check as there will be a computerised surname index with Spalding Council.

[kat2206]

Hi, I am getting myself prepared for the "worst" with regards to my grandmothers death, would there have been newspaper reports back in 1931 with regards to this "tragedy" or am I being a tad naive?

[dothawkes31]

yes absolutely there would have been, reports about such a tragedy would have been very prominent in the local and county press the inquest would have been held within days and statements given, the verdict would be on the death cert in some detail but coroners records were only kept for 30 years and so the local paper is the only source for the verdict.