It is well known that churches have generated many historical records over hundreds of years. As a family historian I know that many such records have been transcribed by societies and are now on the internet, hosted by various commerical sites as well as free ones.
However, much information which could be of great interest to researchers has been distributed widely and is hard to locate when one would have thought that a copy, at least, would have been retained locally.
Yesterday I visited a Records Office and I was able to see research carried out over the last 20-30 years which is not available anywhere else. Both documents contained plot maps for cemeteries which had been painstakingly drawn by hand over many hours. Essentially, these are lost except for those motivated enough to look into it.
England's family history societies are producing Memorial Inscription (MI) booklets and these often have maps in them. However, the old research contained details of the inscriptions which are now illegible on the headstones themselves so it is impossible for the average churchyard visitor to know who is buried where.
My research has long conviced me that - largely - once you have gone, you are gone and forgotten.
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