Mostly I document my local cemetery, Hampstead, London, mainly photographically. The majority of information on my memorial entries comes from the stones, or the burial register, or is documented research. If you are sending edits, or wish to use my photos, or are trying to find a plot number, or locate a grave at Hampstead, please ensure you read the sections below.

Hampstead cemetery is managed by Islington and Camden cemetery services (ICCS), and Camden Council, Parks division. Burials at Hampstead are recorded in Deceased Online:

http://iccslondon.co.uk/genealogyandwargraves/

PLOT NUMBERS

For the appropriate paid search option, plot numbers, last address or place of death and other burials in the same plot may also be given on Deceased Online (see link above). You can also contact the cemetery to ask for the information if you have the name of the person and date of death. Realistically, to have a photo request for the cemetery fulfilled, a plot number is needed.

Generally, for burials from about the 1950s onwards, people died at hospital rather than at home. That means that in earlier burial register entries, their home address is given, because this is usually their place of death, whereas in later burial register entries, only the name of the hospital is given. Of course, if a person died at hospital at any time, then that will be the information recorded.

Please be aware, that due to errors in transcription in Deceased Online, the person you are searching for might not show up, or be recorded incorrectly in some way (including in the wrong plot). It's worth taking a look at the burial register yourself. If you come across an error, please take the time to email them with the correction. It helps everyone.

I prioritise documenting graves that are deteriorating to preserve them for future generations. I include the plot number or a GPS mapped photo whenever I can, as otherwise it can be extremely difficult to find a grave. Hampstead cemetery is poorly maintained and overgrown with brambles, shrubs and ivy. Trees that have fallen, or been felled are left to lie across graves, making access difficult, if not impossible. Invasive saplings are allowed to grow. The paths between graves are often not kept clear, being overgrown or strewn about with debris from monuments.

If you are concerned about the state of your loved one's grave, the following may be useful:

www.cemeteriesandgraves.org

Note: the upkeep of the specific plot is the responsibility of the family. Maintenance of areas between plots and the general cemetery and maintaining access and safety is the responsibility of the cemetery. If you are planning on visiting a family grave in this overgrown cemetery, it may be a good idea to contact the cemetery to check access and come prepared with your gardening necessities.

I have photographs for a great many of my memorial entries in London, Waddesdon and Aylesbury. I also have a backlog of photographs to upload, so if you are interested in seeing the photograph for a particular memorial, do contact me and if I have it and it is at all possible, I will fast-track uploading the photos.

COPYRIGHT PHOTOS

My photographs are copyright to me. Please contact me for express permission to use. They are not be used without express, written contractual permission, and especially not for public, commercial or advertising use. They may not be published without my express permission in any form, online or in any other media including posting on Ancestry, cropping or altering. Any revenue ensuing from their use will revert to me. In the case that I have granted contractual, written permission, my authorship and ownership of my work must be clearly displayed along with their copyright status.

DON'T save my photos and upload them anywhere else, including on this site or Ancestry, or you are infringing copyright: they come up as credited to you rather than me. If you are working from burial or other records which indicate there are more burials in the plot than those stated on the headstone, and have made entries for them, if you send me evidence of your source as indicated above, I am happy to upload to it the same photo that I have for the others in the plot.

SENDING EDITS

I only accept edits supported by documented evidence; if the source is not easily available on Ancestry,please indicate the source of your information in the note function.

DEATH and BIRTH LOCATION

Common mistakes

Putting City of London when you just mean London. City of London is the financial and historic heart of London, but it is not a London borough. The City of London is situated in London, which is a city. They are not the same thing. If you just mean 'London' you have to put Greater London' in FAG.

See: https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/about-us/about-the-city-of-london-corporation/our-role-in-london

Putting Hampstead Garden Suburb when you mean Hampstead. Hampstead is in the London borough of Camden; Hampstead Garden Suburb is in the London borough of Barnet. They are not the same.

Baptism dates are not birth dates. Burial locations are not death locations.

Research thoroughly: burial register, death and birth registers, probate and censi. Google areas for boroughs.

FAMILIES IN BRITISH INDIA

There are many in Hampstead.

an excellent online source:

https://fibis.ourarchives.online/bin/aps_detail.php?id=2340403

HAMPSTEAD CEMETERY

Hampstead is a cemetery with many magnificent memorials to Lords and Ladies, Honourables and Notables, as well as those of ordinary people. Perhaps the most appropriate memorial, for Find a Grave which has lain hidden and sadly neglected in the undergrowth for many years, is that of Dr. Joseph Rogers. He was, as his memorial states: 'For many years the Poor Law Medical Officer for Westminster, the Champion and Friend of the Poor, the Resolute Enemy of Oppression and Wrong' and also: ' As a pioneer of Sanitary Reform, he was the Main Instrument in the Abolition of Burials in Towns; in the Repeal of the Window Tax and in the Establishment of Workhouse Infirmaries and of Public Mortuaries'. English Heritage has erected a blue plaque to his dwelling in Soho.

Some of my Virtual Cemeteries:

War

There are many war related memorials in Hampstead Cemetery. Apart from memorials to those killed in action, there are some to POW's and civilian casualties. Albert Henry Rudd died as a result of a First World War air raid, Cecil Duncan Jones and Lawrence Barringer Sloan were captive at Ruhleben internment camp, Edgar Turney died in 1943 'at Japanese hands' as a POW. The sacrifice of some has not been formally acknowledged: John Druce 1916, Cecil Haddon Holmes, 1919, Archibald Gerald Carver, 1922; Leslie Trilsbach(1924), Major Samuel Haskins, MC (1926), John Rayner 1937, Major William King 1932 and Reginald Buckingham (1939) are amongst those not listed on CWGC, but who died as a result of their participation in the Great War. Wars other than the first and second World Wars are also recorded through the memorials: Sidney Harding died in Matabeleland with Major Wilson's Shanghai Patrol in 1893. George Lind 'died in 1909 from the after effects of a wound received during the Boer War'. Herbert Edmunds was lost when HMS Eurydice foundered in 1878, one of the worst disasters in naval history. Refugees are also buried here: Marie Kral from Vienna. Nurse Esther Poland was a brave WW1 nurse, mentioned in Dispatches.

Local Lives

A virtual cemetery of some of the ordinary people - the fireman, policeman, servants, companions etc who made up everyday life in Hampstead and surrounding areas.

Mothers and Babies

Documents these deaths, as a testimony to, and social document of infant mortality and to women who died close to the birth of a child, mostly before medical science was modern (they are usually the Victorian to early C20th headstones).

Women's Work

is a collection of memorials which in some way document the occupations and achievement of women; for instance, early bluestockings or Nurses, the headmistress of a children's home (Eliza Ann Scoffham/The Cavendish Home), an important female educator and philanthropist ((Ann Dudin Brown), Dr. Betty Kurth, art historian and one of the first women to graduate from Vienna University in 1911, Hannah Brutton, who courageously made use of a wife's divorce petition to separate from a brutal husband in the early years of divorce law, Mabel Hardie, suffragette and doctor who served as a surgeon in WW1, Gladys Margaret Jermyn Hynes, an artist and advocate of women's work, Elsa Goodwin, artist and granddaughter of William Holl, British portrait painter and engraver, Gladys Mary Davis was the first female Olympic silver medalist for Britain in 1921, Dr. Ella Campbell Scarlett - Synge a pioneering woman doctor in the field of medicine, Nurse Esther Poland, mentioned in WW1 Dispatches, to name but a few.

From other cemeteries: Vera Ruth Gordon Douie, buried in Oxford was the first librarian at The Women's Service library and an active member of the women's rights movement

The stories which the stones tell are as endless and varied as the people themselves who dwelt here and now lie in Hampstead Cemetery.

FINDING GRAVES USING MY GPS DATA

Most of the graves I have photographed our GPS mapped. Some are not, but I'm working on that. If you have a plot number, but no GPS mapping, you can still use my data to help you find your grave. Go into my virtual cemeteries and go to 'Rows ABC', 'Rows DEF' etc (NB plots numbered GLS are in virtual cemetery Rows GLS, not in virtual cemetery Rows GHI'), and find the cemetery that fits the plot number you have. Then in the virtual cemetery scroll down until you find a memorial with both a photo and plot number that is close to the plot number you want, open it and check to see if it has GPS mapping. Do that for a couple more memorials. Looking at the GPS maps should then give you an idea of where the grave you are looking for is, approximately. (Alternatively, use the search function within the Cemetery on the Cemetery page for searching with plot numbers plus GPS information. Put in the row you are interested in in the following format eg G. 8. Then see if any of the graves that are proposed or a number close to the one you want. So if you're looking for grave G. 8. 27 and you see something like G. 8. 25 or G. 7. 31, then look at those because they will be close to the grave you are looking for.

Read section below on visiting the cemetery which describes the cemetery layout.

VISITING THE CEMETERY TO LOOK FOR A GRAVE?

Grave plots are organised in alphabetical rows. These begin in the upper cemetery beyond the chapel starting with B rows and end near the entrance lodge in the lower cemetery on Fortune Green Rd with S. rows. The cemetery is divided by a public footpath running horizontally across it, enclosed by railings. The upper cemetery, where the chapel stands, comprises rows B to M. The lower cemetry, which is where the entrance lodge on Fortune Green Rd. stands, comprises a continuation of M rows to S rows. Bizarrely, T rows are grouped around the lane dividing the upper and lower cemeteries. GLS rows are in the lower cemetery starting just behind and beyond the Bianchi monument. Rows beginning. W eg WA, WC. etc line the main paths, front facing, often in two rows. WF rows are all collected together on a gentle slope near the Bianchi memorial. Some sections of rows seem simply missing (I have never located some of the middle numbers of F6 -F12 rows for instance: let me know if you find them).

The alphabetical rows are numbered from 1-12 ie rows R1- R.12, then the graves are numbered within their rows eg R 9. 3 is row R9, grave number 3. Some rows are also subdivided into b rows. Thus R. 9. 3b. Is row R9 grave no. 3b. R9.1 and R9.1b are side by side, the b's running to one side the a's to the other.