Sorry, this video asset has been removed.

Find out about the society's work

by Melissa Hills

Families looking to trace
their ancestors are being given access to gravestone notes
made more than 100 years ago.

Volunteers from the Kent
Archaelogical Society (KAS) have spent the last eight years
meticulously transcibing original notebooks which contain
information recorded from Kent’s gravestones.

The handwritten works contain
details of memorial inscriptions from gravestones in cemetries
across the county, with those from Gravesham the latest to be
uploaded to the organisation’s website for all to see.

The logs, originally compiled by
two men who took on the job as a hobby between 1892 and the 1920s,
provide genealogical information from gravestones, which may have
since become illegible or removed altogether.

Visitors to the KAS website are now
able to read the gravestone inscriptions for individuals and whole
families dating back more than 150 years. And surfers can search by
family surnames, particular locations, known churches or Kent
villages.

Included in the data are
original photographs, including two which depict an unsucessful
search in 1923 for the remains of Princess Pocahontas.

Legend has it that the Native
American Princess was buried in the grounds of St George’s Church,
Gravesend after falling ill on a boat travelling down the River
Thames.

Following a visit to England,
Princess Pocahontas together with husband John Rolfe boarded a ship
in London in 1617.

But whilst on board the princess
developed smallpox and she is understood to have been taken ashore
in the borough where she died.

It is a popular belief that her
remains were buried at St George’s Church, in Gravesend’s town
centre.

The photographs, uncovered with the
notebook of Colyer-Fergusson, show an unsuccessful attempt to find
her remains which to this day have never been found.

To view the names of the people on the memorial inscriptions go to http://www.kentarchaeology.org.uk/ and click on ‘research’.

If you would like more information
or help in finding your Gravesend ancestors please contact Ted
Connell on 01474 872 763 or email ted.connell@btinternet.com