Search for your ancestors who are buried in Norfolk churchyards or burial grounds or who are commemorated on memorials and graves in Norfolk. This is a photographic collection of Norfolk headstones, memorials and, in many cases, churches.
Each record comprises an image of a grave headstone, memorial or church view taken from across the county of Norfolk. Where possible, Findmypast has transcribed key information found on these headstones and memorials which in turn open the doors for further research of Norfolk burial records.
The amount of information listed varies – and in some cases key information has been worn away from headstones - but the records usually include the following information about your ancestor:
There are over 200,000 records in this collection, each of these meticulously photographed by our licensor, Louise Cocker, who has made it her mission to track down and record all gravestones and memorial inscriptions in her home county of Norfolk. This has included photographing graves in ruined or abandoned cemeteries and in some locations which are now usually off limits to non-military personnel.
When complete this will be arguably the most comprehensive photographic record of gravestones and memorials in Norfolk and possibly any county in England.
The ruined All Saints church in Hainford has a graveyard which contains the remains of two victims of poisoning in 1813. The headstone reads:
“Sacred to the memory of Dinah, the wife of James Maxey, aged 45 years, also of Elizabeth Smith (her daughter by a former husband) aged 22 years who on the 20 March 1813 were suddenly deprived of life by means of poison secretly administered to them, they were buried in one grave.”
This is followed by a Biblical verse from the Book of Job, chapter 3, verse 17: “There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest.”
James Maxey, husband of Dinah, was accused if both murders but later acquitted and, over two hundred years later, the case remains unsolved. You can read more about this in the Norfolk Chronicle edition of Saturday 28th August 1913, published on Findmypast and The British Newspaper Archive.
The general rule, when typing information into search term boxes is ‘less is more’. Do not be tempted to type in too much information in too many fields at once. Start with a broad search and then narrow the focus later.
Always consider using the wildcard which is the asterisk on your keypad or keyboard. Wildcard searches help account for misspelled first names, incorrect transcriptions, evolving surnames and other possible name-related issues when searching Findypast’s records. A wildcard character placed in a name tells the search engine to count any letter as a match and will return a diversity of search results.