Glasnevin Cemetery-seeking headstones for 2 ancestors

Hi Pam, Have you looked on Find a grave site? if your relatives are not already there you can create a memorial for them and request an image of their resting place, it would be highly unlikely that there is a headstone but you never know, the fact you have plot number will help so much as there are lots of volunteers for that cemetery. Catherine

Pam,

I got to visit Glasnevin today and got lots of information for you.

James Cassin VA-113-Garden: James was buried here, but he is not mentioned on the headstone. If a person died without having a plot, they had to be buried somewhere. They were buried in what was called 'Free Ground'. Lots of people were buried in the Free Ground, and even unrelated people were buried in the same plot. A family could request that family members be buried in the same plot. That seems to be what occurred here. There were 7 Johnston children buried in this plot. A family could retrospectively purchase a plot from the Free Ground and put up a headstone (see attached). So, James was buried in this plot with about a dozen others. This plot was used from about 1835.

Thomas Casson GG-23.5-Garden: I was told that this is the wrong number and that the correct number is OI-33.5-Garden. This was Free Ground when Thomas died in 1891. In the last few years this area has been re-purposed and is used for burial of children. There are no headstones from its use as Free Ground.

Hope this helps.

Best wishes, Kieran   

Thank you Catherine for your suggestion. I didn't know that you could do that!

Thank you Kieran for taking the time to find so much information for me on my ancestors. Much appreciated. I'd never heard of free burials. How interesting!!! Should I email the Dublin Trust site that they have the wrong location for Thomas?

Pam

Pam,

I'm not sure what access the Dublin Trust have to burial records, but there is good access at the cemetery. You could email them as a statement that when somebody went to the cemetery the number given for the burial of Thomas was OI-33.5 Garden and not GG-23.5-Garden. 

Just in case they confirm that GG section is correct (a difference in spelling could result in a difference), there was no headstone at GG either!

For us in Ireland, every cemetery has Free Ground and it doesn't seem that strange because we have grown up with the idea.

Best wishes, Kieran