M24 Burials

This site contains details of burials in Middleton, Manchester, England. (Postcode M24) The earliest written record is from 1541 but over the years various cemeteries have been opened and closed and Parish boundaries have altered so it can be difficult to locate where your ancestor is buried.

Records of most cemeteries have been transcribed (or the transcription is underway) and this was followed by a transcription of any extant and readable stone. The two sets of resulting data has then been compiled into a master database. Some records will give the name of the next of kin, but often more detail is inscribed on the stone, By combining both sets of records, a lot more detail of the family can be obtained.

For some names there is an entry in the "Obit" column. This is a future project, where local newspapers will be checked for either family notices or full reports of deaths and the name and date of the newspaper will be added.

Where a grave has been identified, the grave number is shown and a link provided that will list all the burials in that grave

Each cemetery has its own page which contains additional detail and grave maps to aid visitors to find the grave easily. Some cemeteries have a second menu to split the cemetery into more manageable areas.

The site is a "work in progress" Not all records and stones have yet been transcribed, so more detail is constantly being added.

The dates in the table below show where burial registers have been transcribed. There may be additional burial outside these dates that have been added when stones have been transcribed.

Outlying areas

Tonge and Alkrington, were originally part of Prestwich so prior to 1839, residents of these areas may have been buried at St. Mary's Prestwich. The area also has boundaries with Heywood, Royton, Chadderton and Manchester and some burials of Middleton residents have been found in those areas.

Finding your ancestors

The search page should be your first call. Typing a surname only will list all persons of that names that we have recorded. You can reduce the results by entering a forename. Scroll down the list and if you find the person you are looking for, check if there is a "Plot Link". If a plot link is shown, clicking this will open a new page that will list all persons buried in that grave. If no plot link is provided then we have not identified the grave. Scrolling down the page will give a 2nd table where additional information may be obtained.

The "Reference" column has a 3 letter code to identify the cemetery. These are identified in the table below.

Reference code		Dates
STL	St. Leonard's Parish Church	1787 to 1980	Most existing grave locations identified
MOC	Middleton Old Cemetery	1862 to 1999	Most grave locations identified
NJW	New Jerusalem Church, Wood St	1832 to 1880	Complete records - Burial ground closed. Some grave locations identified	Some remains re-interred at Boarshaw Cemetery
SMB	St. Mary's Birch	1830 to 1968	Complete records - Burial ground closed Some grave locations identified
ASR	All Saints, Rhodes	1876 to 1949	Few grave locations identified
SMT	St. Michael's, Tonge	1839 to 1925	Few grave locations identified
In Progress
MHB	Mills Hill Baptist Church		Most existing grave locations identified
SJT	St. John's Thornham		Most grave locations identified
MNC	Middleton New (Boarshaw) Cemetery	1912 to 1997	Most existing grave locations identified
NBHxxx	NBH is "Not Buried Here" this will be followed by the code for the cemetery. These are memorials to family members buried elsewhere but recorded on the family stone. The majority of these are service personnel who fell in the line of duty.

Name difficulties

In the early days, clerks would often write down the name as they heard it leading to misspellings in the records. Some of the handwriting in records is difficult to decipher. Some family names have altered spellings over the years - it is not unusual to find different spellings of the same name on the same stone. Where a stone has an inscribed name this has taken precedence over the handwritten records. Where no stone has been identified the hand written record has been used and in some cases this is a "best guess", however on some occasions other records have been used to correct the spelling, such a censuses and the National Death Register.

With so much data being transcribed form hand written sources, there will be errors, either typo's or where we have had to guess the details. If you do find an error please use the contact button and let us know so it can be corrected

A list of identified misspellings is available here

Anomalies

When comparing various records and stones, a number of anomalies have been identified, these are described here