Memorial Inscriptions

A new website has been launched to help family historians use inscriptions on gravestones to trace their ancestors.  

The site is supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and operated at De Montfort University, Bedford, by former Head of History Richard Smart, under the project name the National Archive of Memorial Inscriptions (NAOMI). 

It is the largest site on the internet based on full memorial inscriptions. There are already over 200 burial grounds contributing to the database, which includes more than 70,000 inscriptions and around 100,000 names, ranging from the twelfth to the twenty-first century.    

At present NAOMI is based on inscriptions in Norfolk, but it will grow steadily over the next decade, as more inscriptions from across the country are added to the site.  Most of the inscriptions are supported by other information, including photographs of the church, chapel or graveyard; a plan of the burial ground, which will enable the searcher to find the location of their ancestor's resting place easily if they visit the site; and some historical information about the church.    

Mr Smart says that memorial inscriptions are very important to people interested in tracing their ancestors and hold a vast source of historical information, revealing a lot of information which other records cannot supply.

"They are probably the most valuable tool in establishing family relationships for the period before the mid-nineteenth century, when there was no civil registration of births, marriages and deaths (this began in 1837), and censuses before 1841 are not detailed enough to be useful.   Yet memorial inscriptions are the Cinderellas of family history - difficult to locate even when the information has been recorded. It is hoped NAOMI will help to change this."   

"NAOMI will mean that people will no longer find it difficult to locate the graves of their ancestors, which are the only publicly accessible source which is created by relatives or loved ones and which includes personal information, as opposed to cold and often impersonal data." 

There is no charge for searching the NAOMI website, but a payment is required for information downloaded and the amount, varying from £4 to £7, depends on how much information there is available.  A large part of the money raised will be returned to the Family History Societies which have submitted the data.   

It is also hoped that the website will encourage the recording of the thousands of untranscribed inscriptions on graves across the country, which are vulnerable to weathering and vandalism and desperately need to be preserved. 

To visit the website go to www.memorialinscriptions.org.uk.  If you are interested in becoming a volunteer to help preserve the past and transcribe memorial inscriptions in your area, telephone Richard Smart on 01234 793321.

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