When visiting a cemetery, you will see the variety of gravestones with different styles and looks. Some emblems on the gravestones may be obvious like the cross, a dove or roses. But what does it mean when you see plants, fruit and vegetables on a gravestone? It turns out most symbols can have many meanings – and their representation can vary signi...

A monument of a dog's head by a highway in Western Australia's Wheatbelt marks the graves of more than 200 dogs and is drawing increasing numbers of tourists. The proud, erect dog's head has kept watch over its stretch of highway for decades. The pricked-up ears and stony snout of the statue mark the entry to one of Australia's most unique memorial...

What do you call the caretaker of a cemetery? ​      A sexton is the office of the person or persons who are in charge of a cemetery. They are often referred to as the caretaker of a cemetery. Churches also have a sexton for the maintenance of the church building and/or the surrounding graveyard. In larger buildings, such as cathedra...

Rookwood Cemetery, Sydney Rookwood Cemetery NSW Would you believe that there's a suburb of Sydney with nearly a million inhabitants? The only thing is, none of them are still alive, and the suburb is Rookwood, otherwise known as Rookwood Cemetery. Established in 1868, the cemetery holds two significant records, being both the largest Victorian-era ...

When my brother-in-law died unexpectedly some years ago, I was assigned the task of choosing a gravesite in California, to which he would be brought home for burial. As I walked the grounds of Ascension Cemetery in Lake Forest, I was fairly certain I had seen a headstone with a picture of Wilma Flintstone. Was it? I asked, fearing a stress-induced ...

  In the modern world, we tend to think of death and beauty as incompatible. But a look at some of the most exquisite cemeteries around the globe should quickly convince any traveler otherwise. These 12 sites are no plain plots, but scenic sanctuaries—some guarded by grand trees or looking out over expanses of ocean. Sprawling Père Lachaise in...

The Cemetery and Crematoria Act has a number of specific requirements for record keeping.  The Act requires that records be kept in regard to : ​ Deceased persons Interment details Cremation detail Holder of rights Rights transfers Next of kin, and Exhumations For the smaller cemetery, retaining such records is challenging as it is p...

By default, cemeteries are unnerving places that tend to attract few tourists. However, for every plain Jane who prefers to go out with a slab of granite, an eccentric leaves her mark as part of a manmade barrier reef. For those types—and for tourists who want a slice of the zany macabre while traveling—they should consider any of the following cem...

The point of this trip: To find out why… a) Scandinavian nations keep winning happiness polls, and; b) They are threatening to take Melbourne's 'most liveable city' title away from us. And we've discovered one clear discrepancy: Cemeteries. Green, open and peaceful, Ross and John have visited two cemeteries, both of which host picnics and various o...

People could spend their afterlife as part of an underwater cemetery memorial dive site on Queensland's Gold Coast, with the council floating the idea of building a submerged resting place for burial urns in the city's Broadwater. The idea is based on the Neptune Memorial Reef in Florida in the United States and it is hoped the ocean-bed cemetery w...

​ Members of the Igorot tribe of Mountain Province in northern Philippines have long practised the tradition of burying their dead in hanging coffins, nailed to the sides of cliff faces high above the ground. Comfortably predating the arrival of the Spanish, the procedure can probably be traced back more than two millennia. To this day, the age-old...

All cemeteries are required to ensure their historic and current records are maintained, managed and protected. These records provide a unique insight into the communities , culture and history around a cemetery. Primarily cemeteries are required by regulation to maintain records related to their grounds; be they death records, location, maintenanc...