As Ancestry24 approaches the 20 000 mark of graves photographed in Maitland Cemetery, we have realised how many headstones have fallen over and how many graves don’t actually have headstones. We also have discovered more and more lost headstones from Somerset Road Cemetery are becoming more obvious as we photograph and clean every headstone.

On our visit to Maitland on 14^th September 2012 I spotted a headstone just peeping out from behind the grass and sand in the lower part of Gate 1 section. I knew straight away it was older than the average ones as it was slate.

As I gently moved and shifted the sand and grass it became apparent that the grave was older than I thought as a date beginning with 17….appeared. After half an hour the stone was finally cleared we discovered that the plot adjacent also had a slate headstone even more covered with grass and sand. An hour later we found the Blore Family beginning with John Blore born in Staffordshire 16^th March 1795 who died 25^th December 1842 and his wife Mary Elizabeth Townsend native of London born 24^th July 1784 and died 1^st December 1861.  Mary’s brother Thomas Luck Townsend was the first silversmith at the Cape.  Thomas was well known for his initials as L.T. or just T.

We discovered from records on Ancestry24 that these graves were originally from the old Anglican part of Somerset Road Cemetery.  Another great clue on the family was that John Blore’s daughter Georgina married a Mr. Smith and the plot where the headstone was on had another newer headstone with the inscriptions “Rhoda, wife of Wm Jas Smith died 14 March 1883 aged 57 years and of Elizabeth Muller wife of W. Robertson”.

Digging even further we discover that John Bore’s grandson William Luck Blore married one of Reverend Barnabas Shaw’s daughters, Charlotte Elizabeth.  The number of prominent families becomes endless as we dig deeper and deeper. Search on the Ancestry24 main page to discover all the people buried in Maitland.

If you are related to the Blores’ in anyway – we would love to hear your story.

We would also like to thank Daves Watts, Helen Spangenberg and Neville Rusmussen for being our main photographers and taggers as well as founding members of the “Friends of the Crypt”. Also thank you to all our fantastic volunteers that help with all the additional tagging. You are all marvelous. Click in family tree to expand.