We have added a new search filter for the Spouse in Burial records. This means you can now filter your search results further and zero in on the record you want. For example, let’s say you run a search for the burial of a woman named Jane Wanless, but you get 10 or 20 results. Now you can add the first name of her husband “Johnson” as Spouse’s First Name and run your search again; this time, you will see only one record, that of “Jane Wanless, wife of Johnson Wanless”. This filter has been available for marriages for a long time, but we have just made it available in burials (including cemetery registers). Also, you don’t have to use a surname for this search; you could simply run a search for women named Jane with a spouse named Richard (although I wouldn’t recommend that, as you will get far too many results to be useful – but this can be a useful tool if you have uncommon first names and a surname with highly variable spelling or a history of being mis-transcribed).

As usual, by adding new code, I may have broken some existing code, so please do let me know if you see any unusual behavior on the site in the next few days.

11,247 burials at Gateshead East Cemetery, covering 1901-1906.

Besides many street addresses in Gateshead, residences mentioned include Bensham, Dunston, Felling, Low Fell, Newcastle, Salt Meadows, Teams, and Whitley.

Because these are municipal cemetery records, not church burial records, they present many more genealogically useful details. 99% of these records give either an occupation, a parent or husband’s name, or information about how the person died. Some samples:

• 2 Jan 1901 Sidney Smith, of 25 Marian Street, age: 20, mason
• 12 Jan 1901 Davison Jackson, of 177 Mowbray Street, Heaton, Newcastle, age: 24, labourer, drowned at Hebburn
• 16 Jan 1902 Mary Slavin, of 6 Grahamsley Street, age: 1, daughter of Michael Slavin, Roman Catholic
• 16 Aug 1903 William Weightman, of 75 Westbourne Avenue, age: 48, china merchant, died at the Sedgefield Asylum
• 24 Jan 1904 Sarah Elizabeth Stewart, of 108 Nile Street, Sunderland Road, age: 55, wife of William Robson Stewart
• 6 Jan 1905 Isabella Hutton Roy, of 2 Prospect Place, age: 82, widow of James Roy

1,479 marriage bonds filed in 1824 through 1826 in the Diocese of Durham. These are brand new, not previously in our bond index.

In this period, marriage bonds often provide ages, occupations, place of residence, and sometimes a father or mother for the bride and groom during a period when marriage registers did not provide that information. Please read the Marriage Bonds section of the Transcription Samples page for a description of what information is found in bonds, allegations, and associated documents, and how we present that information.

Samples:

• 2 Jan 1824 Robert Stobbs (printer, bachelor), age 21, of Durham St.Nicholas obtained a licence to marry Isabella Kelsey (spinster, minor with consent of her natural & lawful mother), age 20, of Durham St.Nicholas, daughter of Isabella Kelsey (of Durham St.Nicholas, widow), directed to St.Nicholas
• 23 Oct 1824 William Burlison (joiner, bachelor), age 21, of Norton, County Durham late of Longhorsley, Northumberland obtained a licence to marry Jane Wetherell (spinster), age 21, of Norton, directed to Norton
• 29 Mar 1825 William Henry Nicholas Temperley (bachelor, minor with consent of his mother), age 20, of Newcastle upon Tyne All Saints, son of Charlotte Ann Temperley (widow), obtained a licence to marry Margery Ann Reid (spinster), age 21, of Newcastle upon Tyne All Saints, directed to All Saints
• 16 Nov 1826 William Nairn (widower), age 60, of Morpeth, Northumberland obtained a licence to marry Ann Readhead (spinster), age 40, of Unthank in the parish of Alnham, Northumberland, directed to Alnham

Note that “age 21” means “21 and upwards” in these documents. Marriage bonds cover the entire Diocese of Durham i.e. Durham, Northumberland, North Yorkshire. There are a few licences in our collection that were issued by York. Because bonds cover the whole diocese, there is no way to limit your search of bonds to a single district. If you select a district from the District menu, your selection will be ignored when the marriage bonds database is searched.