Park Road in South Moor, a village to the west of Stanley in County Durham, England. Looking north up the hill towards Oxhill. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
1,000,000th Burial !!!
Durham Records Online is celebrating the millionth burial going online! With the advent of the Stanley Cemetery collection, the count of burial records (church burials plus cemetery registers) passed the 1,000,000 mark. Here is burial number 1,000,000 (at Stanley Cemetery):
- 31 Jul 1901 John Smith Hope, of 24 Jubilee Terrace, Ox Hill, age: 14
The burial collection now numbers 1,006,929.
Stanley Cemetery burials 1891-1977
8,384 burials at Stanley Cemetery between Stanley and Beamish in Lanchester district. Burials in the Old Section are from the opening of the cemetery in Nov 1891 to May 1977. The New Section opened in May 1914 and burials in the Old Section tailed off rapidly after the 1920s. Our transcription of the New Section runs to 20 May 1932, and we have annotated burials in this section with “buried in the New Section”.
Because these are municipal cemetery records, not church burial records, they present many more genealogically useful details. Just over half of these records give an occupation, either of the deceased, of the father, or of the husband (but, oddly, they do not actually name the father or husband). Some give information about how or where the person died. Here are some samples:
- 25 Nov 1891 William Ramshaw, of Front Street, Stanley, age: 46, stone quarryman
- 26 Oct 1892 Emma Thorne, of South Moor, age: 17, coalminer’s daughter
- 23 Jun 1901 Emily Ann Dunn, of 31 Murray Street, age: 27, married woman
- 24 Mar 1913 Barbara Ann Charlton, of 4 High Street, age: 29, coalminer’s wife
- 16 Apr 1930 William Creswell Ramsey, of 20 Shield Field Green, Newcastle, age: 58, killed on the highway at Kip Hill, Stanley, buried by Coroner’s Order
- 12 Dec 1957 George Miles Handy, of 26 Beaconsfield Street, Stanley, age: 60, van driver
- 3 May 1914 William Proudlock Taylor, of 17 Garden Terrace, Stanley, age: 21, grocer, buried in the New Section
- 12 Mar 1924 John Coe, of 9 Joicey Terrace, Tanfield Lea, age: 80, retired miner, non parishioner, buried in the New Section
- 26 Mar 1932 Esther Rodham, of 98 Wear Road, Stanley, age: 49, bricklayer’s wife, buried in the New Section
Besides street addresses in Stanley, abodes mentioned include Annfield Plain, Beamish, Birtley, Burnhope, Chilton, Consett, Craghead, Cresta, Cross Lanes, Crow’s Nest, East Castle Colliery, Stanley, Edmondsley, Fatfield, Greenland, Havannah, High Stanley, Kip Hill, Nettlesworth, No Place, Oakey’s Cottages, Ox Hill, Park House, Pea Farm, Plawsworth, Quaking Houses, Shield Row, South Moor, Stanley Bank Head, Stanley Hall, Stanley Hill Top, Tanfield Lea, Tantobie, Twizell, West Kyo, West Stanley, and White-le-Head.
Bishopwearmouth: Bethel Chapel (Congregational) baptisms & burials
At Bethel Chapel on Villiers Street in Bishopwearmouth, a non-conformist Congregationalist (or Independent) chapel:
- 233 baptisms covering 1811 to 1 Aug 1837
- 404 burials from November 1826 to May 1854 (these are all the burials that ever occurred at this site)
Bethel Chapel was built in 1817. The first three baptisms, dated 1811, 1814, and Dec 1817, are all from the same family, so they probably entered them all at once when the chapel opened in 1817.
Mother’s maiden names were recorded in nearly all of these baptisms, as well as the child’s birth date. The child’s order in the family was also provided until the end of 1820. Here are some samples:
- 26 Mar 1819 Robert Brewis Hobson, of Bishopwearmouth, born 22-Feb 1819, 2nd son of Charles Hobson (shipwright) & Elizabeth Brewis
- 22 Jan 1829 Mary Sherwood Gaine, of East Cross Street, Bishopwearmouth, born 24-Oct 1828, [daughter] of Thomas Gaine (master mariner) & Elizabeth Sherwood
- 30 Jul 1837 Elizabeth Rippon, of Northumberland Street, Bishopwearmouth, born 31-May 1837, [daughter] of Thomas Rippon (butcher) & Leah Curry
Most of these burials show the occupation of the deceased or of the deceased’s husband or father (but without naming the husband or father). Some samples:
- 14 Mar 1828 Joseph Baird, of Sans Street, Bishopwearmouth, age: 58, ship carpenter, died 10 Mar, vault 87
- 30 Jul 1834 Richard William Frater, of Derwent Street, age: 6 years 6 months, excise man’s son, died 27 Jul, vault 57
- 13 Jan 1845 Elizabeth Doxford, of Bedford Street, age: 62, timber merchant’s wife, died 7 Jan, vault 47
Here is an interesting article on Villiers Street from the Sunderland Antiquarians:
Here is an interesting article about the surrounding streets, from an 1892 Sunderland history – use your browser to search for “Bethel” to find your place; it occurs several times on the page.
The burials at Bethel Chapel were in underground vaults with alley-ways, which were added to the chapel in 1826. The 1827 Gazetteer of Durham says “Bethel Chapel, in Villiers-street, erected in 1817 and enlarged in 1826, is under the Congregational or Independent order of church government, and the Rev. Thomas Stratten is the present minister. A cemetery, constructed upon a novel plan, has just been attached to this chapel; it consists of long narrow vaults, arched over with brick work, all of which are approached through one entrance, so secured as to preclude the possibility of the bodies being feloniously disinterred.” In 2006, a ground-penetrating radar survey was carried out by Ian Farmer Associates at the site of the Bethel Chapel at 12-14 Villiers Street. The report summary says, “A complex presence of interconnecting tunnels and vaults were identified and there may have been three areas used for burial. “ Here is an article about locating the crypt in 2010:
Marriage bonds 1827-1828
984 marriage bonds filed in 1827 and 18286 in the Diocese of Durham. These are brand new, not previously in the bond index.
In this period, marriage bonds often provide ages, occupations, place of residence, and sometimes a father or mother for the bride and groom during a period when marriage registers did not provide that information. Please read the Marriage Bonds section of the Transcription Samples page for a description of what information is found in bonds, allegations, and associated documents, and how we present that information.
Samples:
- 27 Dec 1827 John Iceton (widower), age 45, of Sedgefield, County Durham obtained a licence to marry Margaret Storow (spinster), age 21 and upwards, of Auckland St.Andrew, County Durham, directed to St.Andrew
- 21 Apr 1828 Joseph Heslop (stonemason, bachelor, minor with consent of his father), age 18, of Barnard Castle, County Durham, son of John Heslop, obtained a licence to marry Alice Kane (spinster, with consent of her father ), age 17, of Darlington, County Durham, daughter of John Kane, directed to Darlington
Marriage bonds cover the entire Diocese of Durham i.e. Durham, Northumberland, North Yorkshire. There are a few licences in the collection that were issued by York. Because bonds cover the whole diocese, there is no way to limit your search of bonds to a single district. If you select a district from the District menu, your selection will be ignored when the marriage bonds database is searched.
Whitburn and Gateshead Fell marriage witnesses added
- added 998 witnesses to the 494 marriages at Gateshead Fell St. John, from the start of that parish in 1825 to the beginning of civil registration on 1 July 1837. Also added one marriage missed the first time around.
- added 308 witnesses to the 106 marriages at Whitburn St. Mary from the start of 1813 to the beginning of civil registration on 1 July 1837. There are now the witnesses transcribed for all Whitburn marriages, from when witnesses started appearing in 1754
Related articles
- Durham UK Records Online (cumpstonresearch.wordpress.com)
cumpstonresearch 
Pingback: What’s New at Durham Records Online | cumpstonresearch