The Final Resting Place

The January 2010 edition of Graveyard Rabbits Carnival edition, is The Final Resting Place. This theme comes from Colleen McHugh, author of the GYR blog, The R.I.P.PERS. Colleen wants us to investigate how families determine their final resting place. She goes on to say:

In today's mobile society, does one choose a place near where they last lived? Or do they return to the place of their roots? Do they rest in a family plot? If so, and if married, whose family plot? How has the determination of the final resting place changed between the time of our ancestors and now?

In today's mobile society, does one choose a place near where they last lived?

I believe that a person is more likely to chose a place near where they are most sentimentally attached to, not their last physical residence. That is especially if a person has prearranged their funeral details or made their wishes known to others, be it relatives, close friends, or some 'official' if they have none of the former.

At the moment my burial location is in Holy Trinity Anglican Churchyard (Lot 32), a church and graveyard that I am most sentimentally attached too. I have been quite irate twice with changes done to the church and landscape without "informing me" because I live next to it, so it's mine god darn it!

Or do they return to the place of their roots?

Returning to the "place of their roots" happens once again when sentimentality is taken into account. My father will be buried with his parents, uncles, grandparents and other relatives as he has and had emotional bounds with those individuals. My mother on the other hand, has to the best of my knowledge, no burial grounds that serves as a loci point for family and has arranged for burial in Holy Trinity (Lot 32).

Do they rest in a family plot?

While Lot 32 of Holy Trinity Anglican Churchyard can serve as a family plot (having 8 burial places), the location of my father's future burial in Flat Rapids Cemetery, Renfrew County, Ontario is unsuitable to "plot" layouts as the bedrock resides close to the surface resulting in graves being placed where they can be placed. (Or, so I was told at one point so that may have changed and I only vaguely remember one visit to the cemetery.) And as my father has relatives from his maternal and paternal sides of the family in the cemetery it can be seen more as a family "cemetery" then a family "plot".

Plots tend to be restrictive in size anyway. Once a plot fills up a family is usually required, if it is possible, to purchase additional plots elsewhere in the same cemetery. For example, in Holy Trinity the Bruce family has plots on opposite sides of the cemetery (generation 1 and generation 2 here, generation 3 and generation 4 over there, etc), with other relatives that married outside the Bruce family scattered throughout the graveyard.

In my rural area, over time cemeteries tend to become "family" cemeteries simply because the burials reflect the families living in the area and become places where we can see land occupancy traditions as well as marriages between the families that have lived long in the area.

If so, and if married, whose family plot?

I find that wives tend to reside in their husband's family plot. As for the 3,000 km distance between my parents burial places, my mother desires to be cremated and has specified that we split her ashes between Flat Rapids and Holy Trinity, with possibly a third scattered across some landscape or waterway. Discusions have also been had about indicating the burial location of the spouse on the markers erected in both locations.

How has the determination of the final resting place changed between the time of our ancestors and now?

I don't believe it has changed all that much as finances, family association and geographical location continues to play the largest determinant. Individuals tend to be buried with the family they most strongly associated with in life, and if they are not located to "their roots" it is because they are geographically prohibited from being buried with "their roots" (cost of transport, cost of burial in preferred cemetery) or because they have become more attached to a certain geographical area.