Isn’t a walk around an old cemetery fascinating?

[CormoranStrike]

Today I found two amazing names - a man called Pelham Brodie and a woman called Dalmeny Edmonstone Black - plus a confederate soldier who died leading his men in battle in Kentucky and a naval officer who survived being ice-locked in his ship for two years and who died with his crew when they attempted to walk to Canada to escape.

All this in Edinburgh!

themartinipolice I know it's giving a lot of info away, but do you want to share the info? Maybe Mumsnet can help!

I also kind of want someone to start a 'Phenomenal Women' thread where we can share stories of incredible women in our families.

Near me is the resting place of Margorie McCall who's stone reads "lived once, buried twice" it's a great story if you google her...

In Glasgow Necropolis - author of wee willie winkie

Where I live there's an old gravestone which says 'Here lies Hannah Smith, a pious but not loving wife.'

Good woman, Hannah. He sounds like a peevish arsehole if the gravestone he erected for you is anything to go by

From time to time where I live we discover mass war graves, or smaller ones with a few bodies. Several members of my mother's family disappeared in a civil war and we are all part of a DNA project in the hope that someone might be found.
I was born in the north east of the UK, and some of the little country graveyards are so peaceful, so green and well tended. My mother gets extremely emotional, and wonders who will look after her relatives if they are never found.

Like the PP who talked about her grandmother looking after a deceased baby. It's a lovely thought.

It is very interesting. I've got nothing I can recall atm but the baby/children ones make me sad.

@aprilshowersarecomingsoon

It's St Andrews church, just a little way up from The Gate, near the Chinese arch. If you Google st Andrews church and Newcastle witch hunts you will find some information about it, but I'm afraid I don't know where the witches were buried. Shame as I'd like to. It was apparently the biggest mass hanging of the witch hunts in England, or at least one of the biggest. The witch pricker later got his cumuppance when he was found to be a lying twat and I believe he was hung himself in Scotland. I can't quite recall the details.

I had a feeling it would be there. I once worked at a pet shop next to it years ago. Always reminded me of a Stephen King novel!

I have been to some sailor's cemeteries in Russia and the east. They are so cold and inhospitable and grey and desolate. It's as if the sun has never shone there. I think about those poor boys drowning.

chickiepeapie it's a relatively small head stone, at the back of the church on the border with the neighbouring rugby club. The church itself is tiny and really old (Norman)

There's a huge monument in Ours, it's really sad. Think there are at least 6 children on there, all dying months apart and finally a baby and the mother within days. The dad is added 40 years or so later.

I'm guessing it was some sort of epidemic, I stop and read the whole thing whenever I visit, it's very sobering to see.

This is so strange. I found the receipt for my great great granny’s grave yesterday in with a bunch of unrelated stuff. She’s buried in Edinburgh, about a mile from where I live now. Turns out she, and her family live nearby at the the turn of last century.

AndNoneForGretchenWieners:

The skull and crossbones motif is a momento mori which is meant as a reminder of our mortality. On the same lines one rather frank local gravestone reads 'remember man as you pass by as you are now once was I as I am now so must you be prepare for death and follow me'.

I'm in a local history group currently doing grave transcriptions, fascinating! then i get lost in the stories and researching all the people...

You can visit Jeremy Beadle in Highgate.

My parents and grandparents are buried in our home town. There’s two graveyards there, the old one and the new one. The new one was started around the start of the last century. I love to wander around the old one and read all the names and imagine that they’re all the previous inhabitants of the town that I grew up in. I imagine them walking the streets in their Georgian and Victorian finery, with the old shop fronts and the horses and carriages. Always makes me feel so nostalgic and sad in a way. All these entire communities just gone.

Also buried with my family is my grandparents first child. She was only a baby when she died and their only child at the time. I only knew my grandmother and I was quite young when she died. I never appreciated the heartache she must have gone through. She lost my grandfather quite young too.

This thread just feels apposite today. It’s been two years since we lost our little boy (at birth) and today we went around the gardens where his ashes are scattered and saw his plaque and took his little sister and grandparents along too. I’m tremendously sad, but also I’m a little touched at thinking of all the people who will someday hopefully stumble across his name and just read it out once. A little whisper of my little one gone too soon but never forgotten.

Bisquick

I have been doing family tree research and can get lost online looking at FindAGrave when I start reading up on interesting names or stories. If you like walking in graveyards it is worth signing up as people often request photos of relatives graves.

 for you @Bisquick, so sorry for your loss.

I love to walk through graveyards, as does DS(9). Sadly I have a few school friends who are now in our local cemetery and he loves to hear stories about them. I often wonder about WW1 and WW2 soldiers when I come across their graves.

Ah @Bisquick I am glad it gives you some comfort - that’s how I feel when I read children’s graves. I say their name so that somehow they live on, and are not forgotten.

I do this, makes me realise how blessed I am to be born/lived in a time with decent healthcare, so many families lost all their young children (and these were the ones who could afford a headstone).

I too look at the babies, often say their names too, so yes @Bisquik your son will be remembered by many people.

I love the churchyard at Cromarty East Church. When I visited years ago, before the church underwent restoration, some of the very old graves, had carpets of moss that you could lift up, like the blanket on a bed, to read the inscription. Those who had died of the plague have a skull and crossbones. It's been tidied up a bit in recent years, so I expect the moss might have been removed.

Bisquick I’m another who always pauses at babies’ graves and says their name. They will always live on.

For anyone interested, there is a YouTube channel called Hollywood Graveyard. It’s basically tours of the various cemeteries in LA and also New York detailing not just famous people but notable graves too. The guy who presents it is very knowledgeable and I find it fascinating.