How to document reinterment

Question

Roger Craine is shown as having been buried in Mentor Municipal Cemetery, Mentor, OH in 1841, according to the cemetery's register (http://www.cemeteryregister.com/search.asp?id=OH_MENTOR) and pictures posted on Find a Grave. However, this cemetery was not opened until 1854. According to the city's website, bodies were moved from the old cemetery into this cemetery in around 1859 (https://cityofmentor.com/departments/parks-recreation/facilities/mentor-cemetery/). As a result of this, the profile has Error 886.

My gut feeling for the proper resolution would be to create a category for the old cemetery, and put some kind of cross reference to clarify that everyone was moved into the current cemetery. Is that the correct process, or is there a different resolution that would be better?

Answer 1

Hi Steven, welcome to G2G.  I recently encountered the same problem for an ancestor who has a Find A Grave memorial in a cemetery that didn't open until 55 years after his death.  That probably involved a reinterment from a burial ground on a family farm in the area, but there's no record to substantiate that, no recognized cemetery on the family land that would merit a category, and no list of any other family members who possibly may have been reinterred to somewhere.  So if we come up with some standard resolution, I hope it can be general enough to accommodate a scenario like that.

For the time being, I removed the Find A Grave source and the category, and put a Research Note on the profile explaining the situation.  If some standard approach to this problem materializes, I'll play along:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Sponseller-13

Comments

Note that you could use the Find a Grave template with the sameas=no parameter under these circumstances. See the Find a Grave help page, which says

Sameas=no "...can also be used in case of multiple memorials for the same person on [Find a Grave]".

What is going on here is really a case of multiple memorials, even though the first one no longer exists.

---

I perhaps could have explained a little more thoroughly.  It's not a case of multiple memorials or a legitimate sameas=no.  I had written to the cemetery superintendent specifically asking about reinterment.  His response said he has records of a lot of reinterments, but not for this person, and he could not confirm that the person is actually buried in his cemetery.  He mentioned that other members from that family had been buried on family property in the area in the 1700s, but if there ever was an actual cemetery or any memorials, everything had probably been plowed over long ago.

The reinterment explanation was speculative, and there are presumably no records to support it.  The Find A Grave memorial includes no photo and no plot numbers, as most of those in the cemetery do.  Another possible explanation is that the Find A Grave contributor simply invented this memorial without any supporting evidence, for whatever reason.  The original creator is gone, and the current manager says he's not accepting messages.  I'm not in the area, and I'm saying that trying to resolve this is not a project that I am willing to undertake right now.  So I left it in the form of a Research Note for now.

Answer 2

I have ran across the same thing, but it was for veterans buried overseas during the war that were later reinterred and buried in the United States. Both cemeteries still exist. If someone asked the burial, they would look to the profile to see the source. So it could be explained there. I have normally mentioned it in the biography, but it could also be researcher notes.

I say this because it has been my experience with computer software. The fewer choices, the less likely mistakes are. Right now, someone will create cemeteries, and would see the old cemetery moved. If both existed in Wiki Tree, you would have people listing them in both.

Just my thoughts.

Answer 3

I have a number of ancestors who were reinterred because the cemetery they were buried in was closed or reclaimed. I have added both cemetery categories to their profile. 

I have also created cemetery free space profiles connected to the cemetery category to include my research on the cemeteries. Here is the how to link: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Cemetery_Pages

Here is an example: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Devonshire_Street_Cemetery%2C_Haymarket%2C_New_South_Wales

I agree with previous answers regarding the find a grave link, if you add sameas=no to the find a grave number it will resolve your error. 

Answer 4

In terms of resolving the Error 886, I think you could mark the error false and in the status update box put something like "See research note about reinterment", and put the information from this G2G post about the reinterments in a research note.

The purpose of that error is to indicate that the profile may be in the wrong category, but in this case, it's the right category and there's a plausible explanation for why it's correct, even though he died before the cemetery opened. So I'd say this is definitely a case where you can mark it as false.