NEW Funeral Cards & Coffin Plates on AncestorsAtRest

Update on Funeral Cards and Coffin Plates added to AncestorsAtRest

Funeral/Memorial Card William Collins Bean

Coffin Plate of Nahum Russell

Mass Grave Suggests Ancient Village Wiped Out by Massacre

The Dead Still Speak

A 7,000-year-old mass grave holding at least 26 adults and children, many of them with smashed skulls and broken legs, is likely evidence of an early Neolithic massacre, a new study finds.
Most of the cranial bones show signs of blunt-force trauma, the researchers said. A number of individuals also had broken leg bones (tibiae and fibulae), indicating they were tortured before death, or mutilated afterward, said the study's lead researcher, Christian Meyer, a bioarchaeologist who conducted the study while at the University of Mainz in Germany.

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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 

Coffin Plate Of Mary Jones 1871 - 1913

Mary Jones 1871-1913

This interesting Art Nouveau Coffin Plate for Mary Jones 1871-1913 was popular in the 1890-1920 time period. It is made from silver plated cast Pot metal—also known as monkey metal.

Mary Jones Died Jan 16, 1913 age 42 years.

If you would like to look for your ancestors Coffin Plate I have over 500 more at.... 

AncestorsAtRest.com

Use A Relationship Calculator to Help with DNA Matches

If you are like me, whenever you get a DNA match that says the match is possibly a 3rd or 4th cousin, you can't remember or are not sure how to figure out where your common ancestor might be in your ancestry - a grandparent, a great-grandparent....??  In other words, how do you narrow the list of suspects candidates? 

Read more at

A Relationship Calculator Helps with DNA Matches

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

350 Year Old Body found in France with Heart of Husband

  The body of Louise de Quengo, a widow who died in 1656, was found in France, She was fully dressed and buried  with the preserved heart of her dead husband

Read more: Fully Dressed 350 Year Old Body found in France

Find Your Ancestor in Ships Passenger Lists

Visitors to the website Olive Tree Genealogy often ask  for a list of all the free ships passenger lists the site has published online.

 

Read the list at Find Your Ancestor in Ships Passenger Lists or Naturalization Records

Ancient Human Remains Found

Ancient human remains have been found at a construction site in St. Catharines Ontario Canada. Experts believe the bones may be over 200 years old. 

Read the full story at http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/2015/04/20/ancient-human-remains-found-at-downtown-construction-site

Keeping your genealogy research safe and sound is so important

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iDrive just received the prestigious PC Mag Editors Choice award for online backup for 2015. iDrive is easy to install and easy to use. There's no learning curve and you can start protecting your years of genealogy research immediately. 

Use this link for the exclusive iDrive offer

The Coffin Plate Of Frank Brown 1899

Frank Brown 1881~1899

Frank Brown

Died Nov 11. 1899

AE 18Yrs 10Mos 10Dys

For more coffin plates go to

http://ancestorsatrest.com/

The Wine Cup Of Pericles

A ceramic wine cup that is believed to have been used by Classical Greek Athenian statesman Pericles has been found in a pauper's grave in north Athens. The cup was found smashed into pieces but after piecing it back together, archaeologists were amazed to find the name "Pericles" along with the names of five other men.

Pericles

Experts are sure that the cup was used by Pericles, as one of the other names listed is that of Pericles elder brother Ariphron. The name Ariphron is extremely rare so having it listed above that of Pericles makes a strong case that these are the two brothers.

Pericles died of the plague in 429 BC. The cup is to be displayed at the Epigraphical Museum in Athens.

Twenty-five skeletons found on farm

Archaeologists have unearthed more than two dozen skeletons in what is thought to be an ancient cemetery at Chester Farm, near Irchester.
It is hoped the exciting discovery may shed further light on the 2,000-year-old Roman settlement and give another glimpse into what life was like in Roman Britain.

Read More About The 25

Living With The Dead

HIDDEN between tomb stones and ancient crypts, this Filipino graveyard has become an unlikely living city for poverty stricken families.

North Manila Cemetary in the Philippines is home to more than 10,000 people too poor to afford rent in one of the most densely populated places on Earth.
Originally home to caretakers, the living population of the cemetery started to grow as generations hit by poverty moved into their family crypts, sleeping with the deceased remains of parents and grandparents.

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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.

Were Ancient Romans poisoned by lead?

A Roman Lead Pipe

Some historians argue that lead poisoning plagued the Roman elite with diseases such as gout, and may even have hastened the Empire’s fall. How far the gigantic network of lead pipes used in ancient Rome compromised public health in the city is unknown. However, lead isotopes in sediments from Portus – the harbour of Imperial Rome  – register the presence of a strong anthropogenic component during the beginning of the Common Era and the Early Middle Ages.

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Coffin Plate Of Emanuel C Beam

Emanuel C Beam

This coffin plate for Emanuel C Beam is without a date but we can tell from the style of plate and the frame it is displayed in that it dates from around 1880~1890. The photo was taken in Washington NJ so I went and had a look in the 1880 USA Census and found Emanuel living in Mansfield, Warren, New Jersey.

1880 United States Federal Census

Emanuel Beam born 1868. Son of Joseph and Mary living in Mansfield, Warren, New Jersey.

 For more Coffin Plates try Ancestors at Rest

GGGGGGREAT Gramps was a Neanderthal

Is he in your family tree?

Neanderthals and modern humans, tens of thousands of years ago, had sex with each other in Europe and Asia. For this reason, we as modern humans still carry Neanderthal DNA in us. Researchers from Edinburgh University and Wageningen University come to this conclusion based on a comparative statistical analysis of DNA from Neanderthals and humans.

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