What is the Project about?

Burial Grounds are an important part of our heritage.  They provide a wealth of information about our ancestors, which is useful to genealogists and historians.

St. John’s Church Memorial 06/05/2016

As a bookmark in time, monuments and headstone inscriptions can give us a glipse into a past world, enabling us to understand lifestyles, occupations and social history which has shaped the way we live today.

As land space becomes an issue, old graves are reused with the original headstones removed and placed against a graveyard wall.  It is vital that we try to preserve as much of our heritage as we can and there are various projects around the world trying to do just that.

More and more people are trying to trace their family history and the aim of this site is to offer as much of the valuable information these headstones provide, helping with research, whilst keeping the information together in one place.

The Headstone and War Memorial Project and Database is a massive undertaking, we aim to list every War Memorial in the County of Wrexham, along with headstones from the many burial grounds of North Wales. The collecting of these records and pictures of Headstones and Memorials started in 2012 by Graham Lloyd of Wrexham History and in 2014 he was joined by John Davies. We now have a small team of volunteers who transcribe and research individuals, creating a biography.

One of the main reasons to record the headstones is the need to preserve the information on them, many of the older headstones are being worn away and broken by the ravages of nature and occasionally by vandalism. Some of these headstones will never be repaired or replaced and the people they represent will be lost to time. It will also help those tracing ancestors to locate a headstone and in most cases have a high resolution photograph available (see below for how you can use a photograph).

Some have the lead lettering removed and showing signs of wear as in this picture.

Where do you collect the information from?

The War Memorial and Headstone pictures and records when complete will include as much information available, the sources used for the collecting of this information is as follows: transcribing the memorials and headstones, searching Ancestry, Census records, and military records via Ancestry, Find My Past and CWGC. We also have available a small number of church burial records.

Who supplies your Photographs?

All photographs so far have been taken by Graham Lloyd and/or John Davies. All photographs are the copyright of Wrexham History, Graham Lloyd, John Davies, more recently we have been receiving volunteer photographs which are credited individually on each one.

We are also extremely grateful to Lee Wetton of Clwyd Monumental Inscriptions who in 2017 has supplied many photographs covering the old County of Clwyd.

Can I use a picture from your website?

Full members can request free pictures.

Non Members. If you would like to use any of our pictures, please ask us via our contact page, we may ask for a small donation. All requests will be considered. Any photograph used must not be for commercial gain and must be credited to our website. Full details can be supplied.

How is the project funded?

Currently we receive no funding for this project, the only income is from the small amount of revenue from advertising and our very low membership fees. Both Graham and John finance all expenses for travel on photo shoots. The website is funded by Graham Lloyd and the small revenue from the advertising and membership.

Can I get involved?

Yes, this is a huge project which Graham has embarked on and help would be most welcome. You can help in photographing headstones or memorials, transcribing headstones from photographs, researching individuals from war memorial or headstones, drawing or sketching burial ground plans.

Do you charge a fee to use the database?

Membership rates can be found here >>>> Membership Page. Promotions may apply.

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