The Genealogical Society of South Africa

eGSSA branch

Cambridge Crematorium, East London

Cremation Registers 1959-1996

Brian Barrett of East London has photographed both the memorial plaques and the registers of this Crematorium.

To date some 30,000 people have been cremated. The Wall of Remembrance has about 2,000 Plaques and the Garden of Remembrance another 1,000 making a total of 3,000 which is 10% of the cremations. In the case of the vast majority of the other 90%, the ashes have simply been taken by the "Next of Kin" and scattered or possibly buried in an existing grave elsewhere, close to a loved one. There are thirteen register books dating from 1959 to 1996.

The photographs of the memorial plaques can be seen in the eGGSA Gravestone Project and Brian has transcribed the main data from the hand-written registers, 20 217 cremations, from September 1959 to October 1996, after which date the registers were no longer maintained . This data can be searched using the form below; it contains basic details, name, date of death, age at death.

As part of this project the photographed register pages and the memorial plaques are being linked into this database. The processing of these by Richard Ball is taking much longer - so far processed and available from 1959 to the end of 1968. If these are available online a link to them will appear in the search results from the search form below.

Brian has generously made the information resulting from this gigantic project which he has now completed, available here on condition that is not used commercially for profit under any circumstances.

 


 

To search the register transcript please enter  any or all of the criteria in the form below

 

If you search using the cremation number (a plain running number from 1 to 20000) no other criteria will be taken in to account.

When searching for a name which may have more than one spelling, try searching for just that part which is usually the same in both forms, for instance MEINTJES | MEINTJIES: search for MEINTJ,  for VAN RENSBURG | JANSE VAN RENSBURG: search for RENSBURG,  for MACALLISTER | MCALLISTER | MC ALLISTER: search for ALLISTER, for  VAN DER MERWE | V.D.MERWE: search for MERWE.

In names of German origin having vowels such as Ö and Ü these vowels have been expanded into their long form OE and UE, so that KÖPKE will be found spelled KOEPKE, thus facilitating searching. Don't forget, however, that the original scribe may not have included the dieresis.

 


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