Recently I have jumped on board the Family History (Genealogy) train. For my purposes I am not interested in following the history of my family as far back as I can go … but I want to do is to get information on family members and using my scrapbooking skills put together a little book/folder of what I know about my family so that many of the stories are not lost.
I have only been doing this for a couple of months and already a few revelations have been discovered and confirmed from my research. For the most part I am using Ancestry.com.au to do most of my research … However for today, as I had a child free day, it was time for some grave hunting. I knew that my family had some people buried in Rookwood and I wanted to get a photo of the graves (and see if they held any additional answers)
Rookwood Cemetry has been operating since 1867 , and is one of the largest cemeteries in the Southern Hemisphere. The cemetery is managed by five denominational Trusts, each of which is responsible for the care and maintenance of a number of burial sections catering to various ethnic and cultural groups within the community. It is estimated that approximately one million people have been buried at Rookwood, which covers an area of over 300 hectares. So if you have family living in Sydney there is a good chance that they may have someone in there.
Today I was visiting one of the older sections of the Anglican section. It was really interesting. While I had a bit of an idea of where it was (I remember coming with my grandmother to the grave when I was a teenager but that was a long time ago) .. plus I had the section and grave ID (thanks to the Rookwood Cemetery Deceased Search) … it took me about 30 minutes to find the grave. Most of the area was overgrown. Many graves are almost completely hidden by plants and weeds. As the section I was looking in had interments from 1910-1920 there was an interesting mix of people including memorials for soldiers that served in World War 1.
It was nice to find the grave. I was really lucky that the grave stone was in-take and it was relatively free of plant life and weeds. I hope to include it with the photos I do have to help build up the information I have on the family to share with the kids.
So if you are thinking doing a visit to Rookwood in the older sections … I would recommend on wearing water proof shoes and long pants. You will be walking in long grass. Also I would bring some small gardening implements and gloves. If you want to take some photos (or just do some basic tending to the grave) you may needs to pull up weeds and cut back some plants.
