Another email about a great-grandfather
The email arrives from a family historian overseas. Their great-grandfather lived in the village and died in about 1910. Is he buried in the churchyard extension the council took over, or in the cemetery? Could the clerk send the grave location and anything else in the register? Two more arrive the same week, one with the wrong spelling of the surname and a range of twenty years.
The clerk takes the old registers out of the safe. The handwriting is difficult. The index at the back of the first volume covers only some of the years. An hour later the clerk has found one of the three and is not sure about the second. There is no fee for searches, or there is and it barely covers the time, and anyway it feels unhelpful to refuse.
Why these enquiries are so time consuming
The information is already in the council's registers. It is just in a form only the clerk can search, by hand, with the physical books. Family historians often have partial or misspelled details, which makes each search open-ended. And the answer usually needs the grave plan too, to say where the grave actually is.
| What the enquirer knows | What makes it hard |
|---|---|
| A name, possibly misspelled | Handwritten registers, variant spellings |
| A rough date range | Several volumes to search |
| A location, such as 'near the chapel' | The plan and register are separate |
| That a relative is 'somewhere here' | Churchyard and cemetery records held separately |
What it is costing the council
The main cost is the clerk's time, which is often part time and needed for council business. There is also wear on old registers every time they are handled, and a risk that a volume is damaged or misplaced. Enquirers who wait a long time for an answer, or get none, may assume the council is unhelpful, when in fact it has the records and simply lacks a way to share them.
What the council publishes from its registers, and whether to charge for searches, are decisions for your council, taking advice on data protection where living people are concerned.
A searchable burial index
- The registers are photographed or scanned page by page, which also gives the council a backup of the originals.
- Entries are transcribed into an index: name, age, date of burial, grave reference and any other fields your council chooses. Handwritten entries are usually typed by volunteers, often from a local history society, with AI-assisted reading for the clearer pages checked by a person.
- The index is linked to the digital grave plan where one exists, so a result shows the grave's location.
- A public search page on your council website lets anyone search by name with sound-alike matching and a date range. It shows only the fields the council has approved for publication.
- Each result can link to the scanned register page if the council chooses to publish images.
- Enquiries the search cannot answer come through a form to the clerk, with what the enquirer already tried, and your search fee if you charge one.
- Recent burials can be excluded from the public index for a period you set.
- Uncertain transcriptions are marked as such.
- Corrections suggested by the public go to the clerk to accept or reject.
Once the index is live
The overseas enquirer finds their great-grandfather's entry in a minute, with a grave location on the plan. The misspelled surname turns up through sound-alike matching. The clerk gets the occasional enquiry that needs real research, and the registers stay in the safe. Local history groups often find the index useful in their own work, which can bring volunteers for the transcription.
The transcription is the biggest piece of work and can be done in stages, starting with the volumes that get the most enquiries.
Is your clerk the burial search engine?
- Family history enquiries arrive every week.
- Each search means handling old registers.
- Registers have no complete index.
- Answers need the grave plan as well as the register.
- Enquirers wait a long time for a reply.