How would you document a disinterment?
Two of my direct ancestors' remains were relocated after their deaths. Here's how I've handled it so far, for one of them:
In "Burial" I put the original burial date, but the current location of where her remains are laid to rest. In the "reason" section and in a Note on the profile, I explained that she was originally buried on that date at the [name of original cemetery] but was relocated to the current cemetery on [insert date].
I feel like this is the best way to handle it, because I want the location to reflect her current resting place, and it would seem very odd to list a burial date decades after her death. But it also is a bit wonky, as the date listed does not match when she was placed at that location. So, I welcome any other ideas about this.
Answers
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What about using the Burial field for the final resting place and date and a Custom Event for the original location and date?
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My personal thoughts…
I really don't like having the date of the original burial alongside the place of the current burial. All my years in IT tell me that's a risky thing to do because it matches nothing outside of that one profile. If someone introduces a Quality Check against the attached sources (as they have), then it will always object about either the place or the date.
Basically, I see 2 options:
- Burial event contains details of date and place of original burial. A Custom Event (e.g. "Reburial") contains details of date and place of reburial.
- Burial event contains details of date and place of reburial. A Custom Event (e.g. "Initial burial") contains details of date and place of original burial.
In both cases, suitable notes would be very useful.
If you don't know the death details, method 1 (Burial event contains details of original burial) might be better because the original burial is a better approximation to the death details.
But if you do know the death details, then method 2 (Burial event contains details of reburial) might be better because hints from external systems such as FindAGrave or the UK's Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) will almost certainly contain details of the reburial and their hints will most easily end up against the Burial event.
Basically, as we would say on this side of The Pond, "You pays your money and you takes your choice".
For information - reburial was very frequent for UK and Commonwealth military personnel killed during WW1 and WW2. Many casualties were buried close to the battlefield and were only moved into the big cemeteries after the end of the war in a process that is still, even today, occasionally ongoing. The CWGC records the final resting place and often records the initial burial place - however, I have no idea how what percentage have full initial details. My goto example of this in my family has full details on the CWGC site of his death, his reburial date and reburial place. It has the place of his initial burial but not the exact date of the intial burial. If you prefer full details to be in Burial, then the reburial would seem the one to go for.
All the above is my personal opinion.
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There are no hard and fast rules on this and similar issues. As Adrian suggests, it is really a matter of personal choice. However, from advice provided on this forum in the past, I believe the data that should be recorded in the Vitals section is intended to relate to where ones ancestors / relatives were (originally) buried, as to where their remains are now located. So, personally, I would add the latter data as a Custom Event, with the former under Vitals.
The general issue is more commonly raised as to whether, even if the burial location remains the same, the placename should be recorded as it was "back then" or how it is known today. That is where you have different choices. Do you want the main (vitals) detail to relate to the place where they were buried (say in the 19th / 20th century), along with the town and county as it was known at that time, or do you want it shown clearly where their remains are to be found today? As I am trying to convey, even if their remains have not been physically moved one inch, should (for example) I add a "Little Ilford, Essex" suffix to the burial place on someone who was buried in the 1880s, or a "Newham, London" suffix, so perhaps others can more easily locate the cemetery based on its current postal / official address?
If your prime concern is in illustrating where your relative's remains are currently to be found, ignore my previous suggestion and put that detail in the vitals! Ah, but I guess the date still remains an issue (which is what Áine is effectively highlighting). So, in conclusion, - I guess it just has to be your call!
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@Paul W - the one thing I would add is that if you use the date of the burial event but the placename as it is now (and it's changed otherwise there's no point to this post! 😉 ) then I'm fairly certain that the Data Quality routines will say (in the future if not now) that the date and the placename don't match.
For instance, I'm looking at someone in FindAGrave who was buried at Haslington in 1882 (she's not been moved). The correct FS standard for that would be "Haslington, Cheshire, England, United Kingdom". However, FindAGrave has her burial as "St. Matthew's Churchyard, Haslington, Cheshire East Unitary Authority, Cheshire, England".
"Cheshire East Unitary Authority" wasn't created until 2009, so that placename, if it got into FS, would be called out by the DQ routine as it didn't match 1882. And personally, the name and the date just don't match in my head either.
NB - this is currently a theoretical example - as far as I know, FS doesn't recognise "Cheshire East" in its placenames - yet - so it wouldn't get onto the profile to be objected to. But it illustrates the sort of thing that might happen.
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