Draft Advance Release

Event: Remember Your Ancestors’ Day cum DIY/Guided Cemetery Tour

Bukit Brown – Burial ground of Singapore Pioneers

Date: 9 Oct (Sun) 16 Oct (Sun) 2011, from 9 am to 1 pm

Meeting point: In front of Bukit Brown Cemetery Gates at Lorong Halwa, off Kheam Hock Road

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Steps to find out if your ancestor’s graves in Bukit Brown Cemetery:

As Bukit Brown was a government cemetery, there is a burial register kept in the form of microfilm at the National Archives of Singapore at 1 Canning Rise.

The burial records were written in English and kept in burial sequence from the date of burial from 1922 when Bukit Brown was first opened up to the year 1960. The dates follow the Western Calender

1) First find out your ancestor name that you think could be buried in Bukit Brown. As the burial records are in English the names will have to be in English

2) Find out the date of death. Usually the burial date is a few days after the date of death. If you don’t know the exact death date, you would have to comb through the data which is in running sequence.

Remember there are more than 80,000 burials in Bukit Brown, so the closer you can pin down the date of death, the easier it is to find. Even knowing the month of burial will help.

3) Your ancestors’ families may have published the obituary notice in the English newspapers which include the date of burial and burial place. You can check out using the newspapers archives : http://newspapers.nl.sg/

4) Once you have the details of the names and date of death, go down to the National Archives in Canning Rise and ask for the burial register for that particular year.

5) You can find out the burial plot number from the burial register. The last known address of the deceased is also available. Please note that Bukit Brown cemetery is divided into Blocks and Sections. So you should obtain the Block and Section and the grave no.

With the grave plot no, Please go down to “Bukit Brown Cemetery – Remember your ancestors’ day “ on 9 Oct and 16 Oct from 9 am to 1 pm whereby there will be guides there to help them to look for their ancestors

Wear walking shoes and attires. While you look for your ancestors’ graves, you can enjoy the beautiful and serene natural greenery and wildlife that few places in Singapore offer now.

More information coming up!