This is a brief tale of a search that in some ways led to disappointment. Being based in the UK I was asked if I could find the last resting place of the Edgar family. As well as their speciality of pyramidology three of the Edgars, John, Morton and Minna (two brothers and a sister) also wrote a series of little booklets. One of them by John “Where Are The Dead?” was instrumental in attracting the interest of a young man named Fred Franz before the First World War.
We knew from printed accounts that they were buried
in a family plot in the Eastwood Cemetery, Glasgow. There are two cemeteries of
this name, an Old and a New, but the date of the first interment identified the
site as being in the Old.
Were there memorial headstones? Would there even be a pyramid? That is not as fanciful as it sounds. Here is the grave for Piazzi
Smyth.
And here from a Bible Student publication is a grave
marker in Yeovil, Somerset, for a Bible Student, William Hallett, who died in
1921.
The cemetery records in Glasgow had not been
transcribed, let alone posted on the internet. But I was able to make contact
with a Family History Society in Glasgow and a member very kindly did a search
for me. Almost immediately the burial registers for the family were found.
John bought three adjoining plots and later a fourth
was added, totalling plots numbered A-950-953. Sixteen members of the extended
family were eventually buried here. The last interment was in 1968. Any modern
generations of the family, if they still exist, obviously moved elsewhere.
The next step was a visit to the area and again a
willing volunteer from the area visited the site and took the following
photograph. The graves numbered A-950-953 are both sides of the tree in the
foreground. One wonders what size the tree was when these plots were sold
originally.
There are a few memorials standing, which at least enable
one to fix the correct site, but alas, none for the Edgar family. In UK
cemeteries vandalism and sheep with itchy bottoms have eliminated a lot of memorials,
but it would appear from the photographs that the Edgars never did have a
lasting memorial installed.
Realistically, had there been anything like a
pyramid there, it would have been found and publicised long before now.
So this is a non-story really. But you never know
until you follow everything up what may or may not be discovered.
1 comment:
Thanks for following this up Jerome, even though it didn't materialise as you might have hoped. The disappointing thing about research is that it often doesn't lead where you might expect or wish. The great thing about research is that occasionally, every once in a while, it surprises and leads to a conclusion that exceeds your wildest expectation.
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