My latest book, Cemeteries & Graveyards, a Guide for Local and Family Historians is very special; the gestation was long for numerous reasons. It encompassed a global pandemic and a set of very challenging events in my own life about which I will blog in due course – so watch this space and sign up to follow my blog! But – finally after 5 years it is here – and I hope it will push boundaries for family and local historians respectively and promote a deeper understanding of our burial history and cemeteries and graveyards too – and also help you track down those missing burials.

You can order your copy direct from the publisher Pen & Sword books ( or via Amazon although delivery is likely to be slower) and read my Pen and Sword blog post at https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/blog/celia-looks-at-understanding-our-deeper-roots-in-the-context-of-cemeteries-and-graveyards/.

Check back shortly for my first personal blog on the circumstances surrounding the writing of my latest book and why it means so much to me.

 

 

I am delighted to have received a wonderful donation to my collection of death records! This is a set of undertaker’s records for the firm James Recknell & Co. This company operated from 46 Dalston Lane, Hackney for many years.  My initial read through these fascinating records shows that, while the business ran under the name of James Recknell & Co from 1886 to 1973, it was taken over by Albert Thomas Camfield in 1939. Albert later went into partnership with William Arthur Marr. William took over the business after Albert’s death in 1952 finally closing it in 1973. The site is now occupied by the undertakers’ business T. Cribbs.

The freehold of the property at 46 Dalston Lane was owned by the family of Cecil Rhodes (founder of Rhodesia) and deeds show transfers of leases from Cecil’s brothers, Arthur Montague Rhodes and Bernard Maitland Rhodes, and later his nieces Georgia and Violet Rhodes, to James Recknell in 1932, Albert Camfield in 1939 and to William Marr in 1953.

Of all the books in the collection, most fascinating are the undertakers’ order books and accounts giving details of funeral arrangements for hundreds of people, not just from Hackney but from places much further afield too. These also provide a useful insight into the work of an undertaker.

You can read more about funeral records and also gravestones, burials and cemeteries in Chapters 2, 3 and 7 of my book Tracing Your Ancestors Through Death Records

As I work my way through these precious records I will report further!