Disappointing Discovery

[Alien]

I'd never known where my grandparents were buried and when I realised I could possibly find this information in the Glasgow Herald death notices, you can imagine my delight when I discovered they'd both been buried at Sandymount Cemetery in Glasgow. However, when I researched the burial information I was told there were four children and four adults in the lair, which was opened around 1906.
Yesterday I visited the lair and was greatly disappointed to discover no headstone. This is a huge surprise as I don't think the family were poor. What I mean as that in old photographs they appear reasonably turned out! There are four lairs beside my family's without headstones too.
There are two questions I'd like to ask, firstly, how do all these people fit in one lair, and secondly was it likely they didn't have a headstone because all the children died before any of the adults, and it was too sad to write their names on a stone.
Can anyone help?

[Russell]

Hi Alien

I don't know the cemetery you refer to but I have just finished transcribing the Lair records for the UP Burial ground in Kilbarchan and they sold plots measuring 9 X 9. With a potential for at least three or four levels of burial that means each lair could possibly hold up to 16 coffins. More could be fitted in if they were children. None of the lairs had a full complement of burials but some had 7 or 8 with family being brought back from Glasgow and further afield for burial in the family lair.
In some areas the local gravestone maker used softer stone for the memorials and these have eroded over the years and been removed since they split or crumble and cause a hazard. This has happened in Kilbarchan. When they fell down they were simply grassed over with no record kept of the inscription unless the graveyard stones had been recorded, which was often only up to 1855.
Sometimes memorial stones were erected one or more generations after the first interment if the family could afford it but more usually it was the case that the children moved away or abroad and Lair maintainance was not carried out or stones erected.
Private cemeteries often still have the original records of lair sales but some municipal records were often lost in the handovers between one authority and another.
If the graveyard is associated with a church they may still have the original Lair Purchase Registers which can often give additional details.

Hope this gives you ideas for possible alternative sources.

Russell

[Currie]

Hello Alien,

I’ve often found that the more well off members of my family were less likely than those less well off to mark the graves of the deceased. That could be because the more well off had got that way by being frugal, or if you like mean, whereas the less well off had got that way by being generous and putting things other than money first.

That is unless they were very rich or very poor in which case they didn’t have to think twice about it.

But of course other factors come into this such as religion, tradition, community expectations and so on. I doubt that being sad would have been a reason to leave names off a stone etc. as Victorian’s, generally speaking, would have been quite used to infant death, it’s more than likely the reverse would have been the case if individuals were particularly missed.

Alan

[Alien]

Many thanks to you both for giving me an idea of what might have happened. It is a possibility that the headstone has crumbled and is now under the grass. It's also possible that they didn't ever have one, but the information about how many could be in a lair is very helpful indeed.
So, thanks again for your replies, which are much appreciated. I don't feel quite so abandoned now

[Thrall]

Hi Alien, I concur with Currie´s views and can add that two great uncles of mine died young at ages 4 and 10 of scarlet fever in the late nineteenth century. They were buried together and a stone raised, but shortly after, the cemetry was closed and another opened at the other end of the town, Burntisland. When their parents died some decades later, their stone also has details of the sons and where they are interred, so no one was forgotten.

Solid shopkeepers, reasonable earners.

My own parents were cremated, are only recorded in the roll of the crematorium, and I have yet, if ever, to find a suitable position for a plaque of some sort. Bothers me slightly.

Guid hunting,

Thrall

[Alien]

Hi Alien, I concur with Currie´s views and can add that two great uncles of mine died young at ages 4 and 10 of scarlet fever in the late nineteenth century. They were buried together and a stone raised, but shortly after, the cemetry was closed and another opened at the other end of the town, Burntisland. When their parents died some decades later, their stone also has details of the sons and where they are interred, so no one was forgotten.

Solid shopkeepers, reasonable earners.

My own parents were cremated, are only recorded in the roll of the crematorium, and I have yet, if ever, to find a suitable position for a plaque of some sort. Bothers me slightly.

Guid hunting,

Thrall

Thanks Thrall for your contribution to my query. I really appreciate you and all the above taking the time to respond.

Alien