Of the information sources most frequently used by Family Historians - Census Records, Marriage Registers, Baptism Registers/Birth Records and Burial Records – the Burial Records (including Monumental Inscriptions) are probably the least regarded and the least frequently accessed. There are some excellent reasons for modifying this approach.

• The Census is very useful in showing identities, occupations, location and relationships – often across two or more generations – at that point in time. It is easy to see why these records are such a popular starting point for Family research, even accepting the 100 year embargo on the records and the relatively short time period spanned by the available records. However, it needs to be remembered that they are a one-off snapshot of a household on a particular day, once every 10 years. Many life events can occur in this time which will never show up in the Census records. Four sets of Census records are accessible for the roughly 100 year span of the Blackhill transcript.

• When a marriage takes place the records can be an excellent starting point for identifying relatives of at least two generations. Scottish marriage certificates even give an introduction to a third generation since they include both the married names and the maiden surnames of the mothers of the couple being married. However, not everyone reaches marriageable age and some people never marry.

• If a child survives birth the event should be officially recorded and a birth certificate should be available; surprisingly, not every birth is officially registered – even today. Not everyone survives to be baptised and, if they do, not everyone is baptised; if the child dies before it is baptised the death will be officially recorded and a death certificate will be available, but there will be no baptismal record. How, apart from word of mouth, do you establish that it ever existed? Look in the burial records.

We all die eventually and - usually - the burial is recorded. A single burial record can, to a varying degree, be informative in indicating relationships (son/daughter of, wife of, widow of), address, occupation, religious affiliation; any of these can be useful in indicating follow-up avenues and lead-ins to the record sources mentioned above. However, burial records come into their own when we look at them from a family name (including variants) viewpoint. Given a reasonable number of records - in one case as few as three - it is possible to trace family relationships spreading over several generations and a corresponding time span.

Perhaps the most cogent argument for researchers giving more attention to burial records is the way in which they record events which never ‘officially’ happened. These are Stillbirths. Officially a stillborn child was never born therefore there is no registration of the birth; because he/she (the gender is rarely given) was not officially born they cannot officially die, hence there is no death certificate, and yet they can be found in the burial records; quite often they have more identifying details than children - and some adults - who survived past their first breath.

The number of stillborn/unbaptised children in Blackhill Burial Records can be gauged by looking at the Burials by Minister listing. Because the child did not survive birth it would not be baptised and would not, therefore, have any religious affiliation; consequently there would be no Minister in attendance at the burial. Under ‘None’ you will see 2,021 out of a total of 27,345. This is approximately 7.4%.

All of the information discussed above is contained in ‘official’ burial records. It can be very informative. Equally informative - and sometimes more so - are the ‘unofficial’ records of Monumental Inscriptions. These reflect what the family and sometimes the friends or colleagues of the deceased thought was worth recording for posterity. The inscriptions often mirror the information contained in the official records; they can also expand upon it and give unexpected details e.g. record nos. 402 and 97 on pages 15 and 52 of Blackhill Monumental Inscriptions, South graveyard. They can also link together close family relationships even when separated by half the world - see record nos. 361 (the last five lines) and 89 on pages 41 and 52 of these Inscriptions.

The illustrations on this page are from memorials in the North part of the graveyard which I am in the process of transcribing. The earlier records for Blackhill burials show that married women often pre-deceased their husbands and second marriages for widowers were not uncommon. However, it also happened on occasion that women were left as widows and re-married. This can easily create a dead end in Family History research if the second marriage or the new married surname is not known about. The memorial for Ellen Elizabeth at the top of this page shows how headstone inscriptions can sometimes solve this problem, with the added bonus of the place and date of her birth.

Movement into the Consett area was very common in the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century. Of course, people also move out of the area and can effectively disappear as far as Family history research is concerned. The first three inscriptions on the left show how headstones can help in tracking them down.

It is not uncommon for maiden names to be mentioned on headstones, sometimes with the names of one or both parents. However, it is relatively rare for them to show as much detail as is seen in the Harrison/Walton inscription, albeit for only one parent.

Florence Edith’s part-inscription on the left illustrates the point made earlier about headstones being used to record what the family and friends considered important. Incidentally, this particular accident is mentioned on several headstones in the graveyard, perhaps reflecting the shock which it caused at the time.

The final ‘inscription’ on the left is actually a grave marker put in place by Derwentside Council. It consists of an A4 printed sheet in a plastic folder nailed to a 2”x 2” stake. This is slightly more ornate than the usual grave markers which normally consist of the stake with a surname and plot no. written in felt tip pen. If you want to read about the Countess’s story there is a very good article at http://www.thenorthumbrian.co.uk/features/coutess_amelia.php

Finally, just to show that no source of information is perfect, I append the partial inscription shown below. There are lots of Charltons shown in Blackhill Burial records but John Thomas is not one of them - not even his ashes. This inscription raises many more questions than it answers. How did he die - a fall, a heart attack, overcome by fumes, volcanic eruption? What was he doing there and where is he buried - or was he simply incinerated? Some intrepid Family historian will no doubt have an interesting time trying to sort out the answers.

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