Churches & Cemeteries, a
Living Time Capsule

by Carole Holt

Churches are often beautiful buildings to look at, although an increasing number of people only ever experience them from the outside. Inside the church one can often discover a wealth of information that is constantly being increased.

Although, It may seem strange to call a church or cemetery a 'Living Time Capsule', it is certainly not meant to be disrespectful to an ongoing place of worship, perhaps even pilgrimage. The word church, in this context, means any place of worship worldwide. Churches can date from new concrete buildings to structures that are hundreds or thousands of years old.

The term 'Living Time Capsule' is often coined because most churches are being used the same today as they were hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of years ago. The churches are places where births, marriages and deaths are celebrated and recorded as they had been for so many years before. These life events were/are recorded on registers and then placed in large vaults inside the church. Thus they stand as a living testament of families that have lived and died in hamlets, villages, towns and cities for generations past and present. The cemeteries bear witness to people who lived, loved and died, their lives often intertwined at various points with the church.

Today these records are written with a fountain pen, a hundred years ago in pen and ink in perfect copperplate handwriting and before that a quill pen and ink. Those which had not been written down on paper or parchment had been hammered out on stones, flag stones, tomb stones, grave stones, marble tablets inside the church, plaques and inside the very fabric of the church itself. The records of family life events are invaluable; some families may have spent all their lives in one small village; other families have spread around the world. The past, present and future lives of families that see the church as their corner stone will have their names recorded on registers for future members to discover and enjoy.