Volunteers honoring those buried in unmarked graves at forgotten cemetery for mentally ill

Many graves go unmarked and forgotten.

For almost 80 years, no one is thought to have visited Peter Gauslin's grave.

Relatives didn't know where he was buried or how he died until his great-grandson Andrew Daft began researching family history in 2012 and learned his death occurred at a mental institution. He also discovered that Gauslin, his grandmother's father, is buried in an unmarked grave in Appleton, about 100 miles north of Milwaukee.

Gauslin is among tens of thousands who were buried in unmarked graves around the nation during the 20th century after dying at state- or county-run psychiatric hospitals, then called insane asylums or sanitariums. Families were either too poor for a headstone, couldn't be reached or had forgotten about their relatives.

Read more about the unmarked graves 

The Coffin Plates Of Jonathan Abrams And Mary Abrams

Jonathan Abrams 

Died April 28th 1918

Aged 64

Mary Matilda Abrams 

Died April 27. 1924

Aged 66 years 10 mons

This group of Coffin Plates is for a husband and wife. I am told Jonathan Abrams was from Ontario Canada.

Submitted by Brad Abrams

View more Coffin Plates at http://ancestorsatrest.com

Skeletons of war dead from 11,000 BC go on display

Oldest War Dead

Lying on their sides, curled together, the two skeletons on display for the first time at the British Museum look peacefully laid to rest. But the razor-sharp stone flakes scattered around and among the bones are the remains of ancient weapons, with a myriad breaks and slash marks on the skeletons. The two are among the oldest war dead in the world, men who died a brutal death after violent lives 13,000 years ago.
The cemetery they came from, on the banks of the Nile in what is now northern Sudan, is famous among archaeologists: dating from about 11,000 BC, it is among the oldest organised burial grounds in the world. However, the finds, including the shattered bones of scores of men, women and children and the remains of the weapons that killed them, have never been exhibited before.

Read More About War Dead

The 'oldest tree in Europe' discovered in a Welsh cemetery

5000 year old yew tree in Wales

I don't normally blog about trees (well perhaps Family Trees) but as this one is in a cemetery its worthy of note. Experts say a yew tree found in St Cynog’s churchyard in Wales, is probably Europe’s oldest living thing.

The tree is more than 5,000 years old, that's 3,000BC. It started growing about 500 years before the Pharaohs in Egypt built the Great Pyramid of Giza. And it was a sapling at about the time work first began on building Stonehenge.

If only it could talk.

Down syndrome in medieval France

The 1500 year old skull of a young girl with Down Syndrome

New research by archaeologists in France have discovered what is believed to be the oldest case of Down syndrome in the archaeological record. Archaeologists had originally discovered the skeleton of a young girl aged about 6 years old in 1989, when they excavated it along with 93 other skeletons from a 5th to 6th century cemetery located near the Abbey of Saint-Jean-des-Vignes in northeastern France. Researchers had suspected at the time of the excavation that the child may have had Down syndrome, but they believe they can now confirm the diagnosis.

Large mudslide reported at Baltimore cemetery

In what could have been a very upsetting event, video captured Thursday a huge mudslide at Western Cemetery in Baltimore. The video shows several headstones that were dislodged. Some ended up at the bottom of the mudslide. Officials at the cemetery stated that no graves were damaged.  They said while some tombstones were dislodged, the area where the mudslide occurred was where those tombstones are stored.

To read more about the mud slide at Western Cemetery in Baltimore go Here

There Are One Million Buried In Mass Graves On A Forbidden New York Island.

Heart Island

Most New Yorkers don't even know it exists. But a million forgotten souls are buried in mass graves dug by convicts on a tiny, forbidden island east of the Bronx.
Since 1869, still-born babies, the homeless, the poor and the unclaimed have been stacked one upon the other, three coffins deep, on Hart Island.


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Rita Balloni Coffin Plate 1919

The Coffin Plate Of Rita Balloni 1919

Oct 1, 1919

Rita Balloni

Aged 83 Years

For More Coffin Plates Go To

This Could Be Your Ancestor

In what one expert called "a real freak of preservation." British archaeologists have unearthed an 2,000 year old skull carrying a surprise — an unusually well-preserved brain. The skull was found in a muddy pit during a dig at the University of York in northern England this fall.

Archaeologists do not know if they will be able to extract DNA from the brain. If they do, someone may find they have a very interesting story for their family tree.