A SMALL group of volunteers has been documenting and photographing gravesites across the Upper Highway area and beyond, helping preserve the histories recorded on headstones and making the information accessible to families and genealogists.

The group turned its attention to the graveyard at St John the Baptist Anglican Church in Pinetown on Sunday, November 1, where members photographed headstones that had not previously appeared on the free-to-access eGGSA Graves website.

eGSSA is the virtual or online branch of the Genealogical Society of SA.

One of the volunteers, Deon van Niekerk, explained that although the graveyard at this church was already listed on the website, the group discovered that many headstones had not been photographed.

They also documented plaques and headstones added since 2008, when the site was originally photographed.

“Our little group has taken a long time to start with the St John the Baptist Anglican Church graveyard, as it already appeared on the eGGSA Graves site,” said Van Niekerk.

The volunteers initially started their work at the Lutheran Church cemetery in New Germany.

Since then, they have recorded a large proportion of graves at Ashley Cemetery and the Pinetown Catholic Church cemetery off Underwood Road.

“As a team we have also cleaned and photographed the headstones in the West Street cemetery in Durban and the small Hillary cemetery,” said Van Niekerk.

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According to Van Niekerk, the Lutheran Church cemetery in Durban and the St John the Baptist Anglican Church graveyard contain the graves of some of Pinetown’s pioneering families.

Van Niekerk added that among the family names recorded at the Lutheran Church cemetery are Bohmer, Dinkleman and Volek, while the Anglican churchyard contains the graves of pioneering families such as Munro, Trotter and Anderson.

The site also contains a memorial stone and graves belonging to the son and other family members of Captain Spencer French Drake.

Van Niekerk said their efforts help preserve records that could have otherwise been lost because “many graves are getting damaged by vandalism and just normal weathering”.

“The people that use the eGGSA site are those looking for family members’ graves and genealogists.

“The grave usually gives information that you as a family member have forgotten.

“With the correct information, you can then go search for the necessary documents, such as baptisms, marriages and death notices on sites like Family Search,” said Van Niekerk.

The team has also “gone further afield” and found graves which had been forgotten, such as the grave of Richard Pennington, after whom Pennington is named.

“We also found an old family graveyard in the sugarcane outside of Umzinto for the Arbuthnot and Hawkstones,” said Van Niekerk.

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