#GOONSBlogChallenge No 10
I thought I would share my preparation for a visit to a graveyard. Well not just one but several over a long weekend.
As I live in another country, I have to plan well to be able to make the most of the time that I have in Scotland and to be able to cover as much ground as possible in the restricted time available.
The Aitchison surname is supposedly from the borders area of Scotland which is where I have focused my trips so far. Starting in East Lothian, Haddingtonshire where my grandfather George Aitchison was born on the 21st May 1900 and working down towards the border with England encompassing Berwickshire and currently planning my next trip to Roxburghshire.
On my last trip I did get into Roxburghshire but there are still many graveyards to visit.
I start of with the Ordnance Survey Maps from the OS Explorer range with 4cm to 1km (1:25,000) scale and highlight any graveyard, church or cemetery (usually denoted as cemy) that is shown on them. These maps also have a mobile download option.
It would be easy to miss a cemetery or graveyard if I didn’t do this. For example, in Hawick which I am planning on my next trip you can see that there are 2 cemeteries and it would be easy to miss one if you didn’t know you were looking for 2.
I then go to The Scottish Association of Family History website – https://www.safhs.org.uk/ and go to their Burial Grounds database.
The database can be searched by county so putting in Roxburgh I come up with 74 potential burial grounds. Many of which will have an Aitchison burial.
The list can be copied and pasted into an excel workbook so that you can make notes against each site. Clicking onto the burial site takes you to the next page which gives you information about the burial site and in many cases a map (Occasionally the pin on the map is slightly of its target). It also tells you if there are memorial inscriptions already published and where they are held. These are invaluable in finding some of the older gravestones, whose inscriptions may have eroded over time. The Borders Family History Society has many of these.
Some of the burial sites however may no longer exist and there are many cists which are registered on this site and there is nothing to find now.
Once I have looked up each of the sites on this list, I cross check against my highlighted map and mark any that may not have shown up.
There are some old burial sites that do not show up on the Ordnance Survey maps and this is when I turn to Canmore maps https://canmore.org.uk This resource helps me to find the exact spot that I am looking for.
If a burial site exists but is hidden away this is how I find it. It is also really useful to zoom into the larger graveyards and print out a map of the graveyard that you can use to log exactly where you find your gravestones as the images below of St Mary’s Church in Hawick and Wilton Cemetery.
On one of my last trips I was looking for a burial site – the old site of the Langton Church which was hidden away in the woods. I stopped a couple walking their dog, who lived in the area and had been walking there for over 20 years. They had never heard of the graveyard. I found it about 50 meters from where I had spoken to them but would never have known where if I had not used the Canmore maps beforehand.
Once I have visited the site I then mark it on my Aitchison One-Name Study website https://aitchison.one-name.net/ under the cemeteries section with a pin in the exact location, and upload any Aitchison’s headstones that I have found.
So, a lot of preparation beforehand but definitely worth the effort as I can’t just pop back if I have missed something. I hope sharing my methodology helps anyone thinking about grave hunting.
Happy hunting!
Feature picture is of Maxton Church in Roxburgh, Scotland
Aitchison One-Name Study 