Field trip – Old Ballarat Cemetery

Like any keen genealogist or family historian, I tend to get excited at the thought of a trip to a cemetery – any cemetery.  Having ancestors in that cemetery is not a prerequisite, the excitement is still the same.  So a week ago,  I was up bright and early and raring to get going to Ballarat to visit both the Old and New Ballarat cemeteries where I do have ancestors buried. To add to the excitement, firstly I had to call by the local car dealer and pick up my new car.

First up,  the Old Ballarat Cemetery which was opened in 1856 at the height of the goldrush. There is a monument to the Eureka Stockade which was erected in 1879, which seems to be watching over the graves. In the centre of the cemetery is a beautiful original rotunda which was built in 1892 and restored in recent years. The rotunda was used as a place for mourning families to meet up before the funeral of their loved ones.

The main reason for my trip to this cemetery was to hopefully find the grave of my Great Great Great Grandfather Andrew LOUDEN and his wife and daughter.  Due to the research done previous to the trip, it only took me 5 minutes to find the grave, and what a surprise it was to find that the headstone still existed and was in excellent condition. There are many damaged headstones in the cemetery. Sadly many of them appear to have been vandalised.   I don’t know a lot about this branch of the family yet, but that is about to change as my research heads into Scotland in 2012

Andrew LOUDEN and his wife Elizabeth ANDERSON married  in 1852 at Old Monkland, Lanarkshire, Scotland. Shortly after the marriage, they left Scotland, bound for Australia on the ship “Aberfoyle”.  They  settled in the Ballarat and Sebastapol area, where they raised their family of 12 children, and lived until their deaths.    Their second child Jane, is my Great Great Grandmother.  Their daughter Isabella, born in 1860 didn’t marry and is buried with her parents.

I spent so long investigating the Old Cemetery that there was no time for the New Cemetery, so will need to do another trip to Ballarat very soon.  I uploaded the photo of the LOUDEN  oLD grave  to  BillionGraves . Adding graves to this project is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while now. I have an app on my iphone so it’s quick and easy. Also, I live very close to the Kangaroo Flat Cemetery and walk past it every day. I have decided that instead of walking past I will walk through and quickly photograph a couple of graves each day that I can.  At least that will be a start, and won’t take long for the uploads to add up to a decent number.