Cheshire and Chester burials join DeceasedOnline

A major release from Deceased Online (www.deceasedonline.com):

West Cheshire & Chester Council on Deceased Online 
First region in Northwest England on UK’s only burial records database 

Cheshire West and Chester Council has become the first local authority in England’s Northwest to make all its burial and cremation records available through Deceased Online, the UK’s only database website dedicated to statutory burial and cremation records.

From 9th February local residents, family historians and genealogy researchers worldwide will be able to trace their ancestors via the website www.deceasedonline.com

The Council manages five cemeteries as well as Chester Crematorium in Blacon. Records for the crematorium and Blacon, Overpool, Neston and Wharton cemeteries will be available on-line from 9th February. The records from Overleigh cemetery will be made available in two phases, more modern records (from 1953) will be available in February and all other records in late Spring. In total, there are 185,000 burials and cremations.

Users will be able to search by name of deceased, date of death, and location of a grave or cremation records free of charge. If relevant records are found, the on-line user has the option to purchase, for a modest fee, access to grave details and scans of burial registers to view, print and/or download.

The scans provide details such as full names, the deceased’s address details, age, parish and grave reference and in some cases the occupation of the deceased. The burial records will also provide details of all those buried within graves, helping researchers to establish other family links, as well as grave number references, useful in locating and identifying graves.

The Council’s Executive Member for Community and Environment, Councillor Lynn Riley said of the project: “This is an exciting development, not only for local residents but for the global community of family historians. Adding the Council records to a national database will make them accessible to everyone, at any time and from any part of the world.”

Jamie Burges-Lumsden from Deceased Online said: “We are delighted to be working with Cheshire West and Chester Council. By adding their records to the database we are able to link areas across the UK and provide information to those searching ancestral roots. We already have thousands of on-line users and we hope that they will find the additional records of great interest and benefit.

“We are set to add many more records soon with more areas across northern England, Scotland, Wales, London and other parts of the UK. Our unique database continues to grow”, explains Burges-Lumsden.

(With thanks to Richard Gray)

Chris