The history of Coffin Plates or casket plates is a long but not very well documented one. Coffin plates are decorative adornments attached to the coffin that contain free genealogical information like the name and death date of the deceased. Generally made of a soft metal like lead, pewter, silver, brass, copper, zinc or tin. The different metals reflect the different functions of the plates, or the status and wealth of the deceased. For a basic funeral, a simple lead plate would be lettered with the name, date of death and often the age of the departed, and nailed to the lid of a wooden coffin. But high status people could afford a plate of a more expensive metal and elaborate design. The oldest coffin plates that I have seen date from the 17th century (1600~1699) and were at that time reserved for people of some stature. As time went on more people were able to afford the luxury of a Coffin Plate and with the coming of the industrial revolution the cost of the plates went down so much that by the middle of the 19th century almost every family could afford to have one put on the coffin of their loved one.

Originally the manufacture of coffin plates was of course a cottage industry. The plates were made by a variety of craftsmen and woman with varying levels of skill. Wealthy people were able to contract with a skilled metalworker or silversmith and as a result some of the most elaborate plates can rightly be considered works of art. On the other end of the scale many plates were made by the local blacksmith or tinsmith and are of a crude and simple design.

In the late 1840s the first machine made coffin plates began to appear. At first they were simple shapes stamped out of a flat piece of metal. An example of would be the coffin plate of Lucy A Smith who died in 1848. Soon more elaborate shapes with fancy designs stamped on them began to appear and by the 1860s there were literally dozens of shapes and styles from many different manufacturers to choose from. The industrial manufactured coffin plates of course had no names on them. They were in fact just blanks that were intended to be engraved by someone in the local community such as a jeweller or undertaker. As such the quality of the engraving varies wildly.

See a 1790 Coffin Plate makers newspaper advertisment.

In North Americaat the same time that the use of coffin plates was increasing in popularity the practice of removing the plates from the coffin before burial increased. Often the Coffin Plates were never attached to the coffin but displayed on a stand or table next to it. An example of this can be seen in the photo of the coffin plate of Charles Diven Glenn. The coffin plates were removed to be kept as mementos by the loved ones of the deceased. This practice started in the early 1840s and was particularly popular in the North Eastern United States, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island. The farther you get from the Northeastern U.S. the less common the practice becomes. This practice peaked in the late 19th century (1880~1899) and by the 1920s this practice had all but stoped.

In some more rare cases the plates are removed when the grave is disturbed for some reason like cemetery relocation. This is more common in Europe were space for graves is at a premium.

It must be noted that most of the coffin plates on this site are the small decorative kind favored in North America. Not the large breastplate kind that were more popular in England. The Large Breastplate Coffin Plates were so large ( about 12 or 15 inches tall ) they were never intended to be taken home by the family. I have a few examples of the Large Breastplate Coffin Plates at the bottom of this page in the England section.

Search! Start your hunt for ancestors Build! Order an AncestryDNA® Kit Share! Learn! Take the next step in your genealogy research

Coffin Plates can be an excellent and often overlooked source of free genealogical information. They often contain the Birth Record and Death Record and can be used as a substitute for vital records. (Well technically they are not a substitute for vital records as the person giving the info might not have known for sure when the deceased was born or died. But it's a good place to start.) If you want to know more about what things qualify as a true Vital Records there is a good article at Olive Tree Genealogy. The manufacture of coffin plates predates vital records in many cases by hundreds of years. In some cases the coffin plate may be the only record that a particular individual ever existed. This is especially true of children who were born and died between census years.

The usefulness information found on coffin plates varies with each individual plate. Some coffin plates have only a name so are of almost no value to a genealogist as it is almost impossible to know who that individual was. It is however possible to get some idea of when the plate was manufactured as the styles and manufacturing techniques of plates changed over the years. It must be noted however that the plate may have sat in some undertakers inventory for years or even decades before it was used. To help narrow down the date of use one needs to look at the style of engraving that was used as this also changed over time.

However many coffin plates contain much more information than just a name. Most have a date of birth and death and many contain much more. Some coffin plates even contain a photograph of the individual. Below you will find a list of some of the information it is possible to find on a coffin plate.

Name
Date of birth
Date of death
Place of birth
Place of death
Marital status
Name of spouse
Occupation
Military service information
Lodge or group or club affiliation
Photograph
Religious denomination

Unfortunately these valuable resources are scattered and there has not been a single repository for this valuable free genealogy resource until now. It is my intention to create a coffin plate database and a home for the unwanted plates themselves.

Coffin Plate Records on Ancestors At Rest Master Index

Canada and the United States

A Surnames Coffin Plate Death Records

B Surnames Coffin Plate Death Records

Best Kept Genealogy Secrets!

C Surnames Coffin Plate Death Records

John Cochran 1788~1881 Found in Canada
Phoebe Cochran 1789~1886 Found in Canada
William Cochran 1805~1881
Clementina D Collins 1824~1869 Found in Maine
J. T. Cone Found in Mass
Celia Connelly
Anna M Connors 1885~1895
Sylvana Contine 1847~1863
Lawrence Cotter
Mary E Crawford 1836~1889
Capt Samuel Crockett 1793 ~ 1862 Found in Connecticut. May be from Maine.
Cordelia Crowell 1810~1875
Anna Crowninshield 1773~1852 Wrentham, Norfolk, Massachusetts.
Rachel Cul??n Died 1881 Found in U.S.A.
Thomas Edward Culverwell 1856~1936
George L Cummings Found in Texas
Maggie P Currie 1866~1879 Found in Texas
William j Custance Found in Maine

Where Can I Find More Death Records? As far as I know I'm the only site that has such a huge collection of Coffin Plates online. I add more every week so be sure to BOOKMARK this coffin plate death records page so you can come back to check for new records. Meantime, you might want to search these death records for your ancestor: Try an Ancestry Free Trial Ancestry has more records than any site on the net. Funeral Cards [Genealogy Today] Social Security Death Index [Rootsweb.com]

D Surnames Coffin Plate Death Records

Felix Dombrowski 1885~1925

E Surnames Coffin Plate Death Records

F Surnames Coffin Plate Death Records

G Surnames Coffin Plate Death Records

H Surnames Coffin Plate Death Records

J Surnames Coffin Plate Death Records

K Surnames Coffin Plate Death Records

L Surnames Coffin Plate Death Records

Where Can I Find More Death Records? As far as I know I'm the only site that has such a huge collection of Coffin Plates online. I add more every week so be sure to BOOKMARK this coffin plate death records page so you can come back to check for new records. Meantime, you might want to search these death records for your ancestor: Try the Ancestry Free Trial Ancestry has more records than any site on the net. Funeral Cards [Genealogy Today] Social Security Death Index [Rootsweb.com]

M Surnames Coffin Plate Death Records

Olive Tree Genealogy Blog one of the 25 Most Popular Genealogy Blogs as of April 3, 2009, determined by Technorati.

Lydia M Matteson 1830~1851 Found in R.I.
Mary A Matteson 1833~1871 Found in R.I.
Mrs Matteson 1847 Newspaper Story.
Urban Matteson 1863~1866 Found in Rhode Island
Mrs W.H. Matteson Found in R.I.
Charles Mayness 1856~1886 Found in the U.S.A.
Flora May McAlpine 1885~1887 Found in U.S.A.
Albert McDonald Found in Ontario, Canada.
Henry W McDonald Found in U.S.A.
Joan A McDonald 1864~1918 Found in U.S.A.
Richard McKee 1842~1868 Found in New York U.S.A.
Finily McKenzie 1816~1896 Found in the U.S.A.
Hellen McKenzie 1822~1878 Found in the U.S.A.
Ebenezer Mc Mullin 1815 ~ 1894 Found in Ontario Canada.
Henry McDonald Found in the U.S.A.
Joan A McDonald 1864 ~ 1918 Found in the U.S.A.
Victoria McIlmoyle 1878~1898 Ontario, Canada
Caty Ann McKinnon
Millicent McLean 1888~1905
Sally Merrill 1784~1859 May be from Lexington, Middlesex, Massachusetts
Andrew B Michlejohn Rawdon, Hastings County, Ontario Canada.
Peter Milkins 1825~1885 Westerlow Albany County New York
Suzannah Milkins 1830~1890 Westerlow Albany County New York
Clarence E Miller 1885~1886 Found in U.S.A.
John Miller 1838~1906 Found in Nova Scotia.
Julia M Miller 1850~1890 Found in N.C, U.S.A.
Esther J Monell Found in U.S.A.
Francis Montgomery 1834~1898 Found in Detroit
Joseph Montgomery Found in Ontario
Viola Montgomery Found in Ontario
Ann Montgomery Found in Ontario
Alma Moore 1861~1878
John Milton Morgan 1900~1916
E Julialite Morin 1906~1907 Found in New Hampshire
Joseph G. A. Morin 1898~1898 Found in New Hampshire
Marie Alice Bertha Morin Found in New Hampshire
Marie B. D. Morin 1896~1899 Found in New Hampshire
Alva Morrison 1809~1863 Clinton, Kennebec, Maine
Mrs Julia M Morrison 1819~1890
Mary M Mortmer 1831~1864 Found in New Hampshire
Capt John C Murch Found in Maine

N Surnames Coffin Plate Death Records

O Surnames Coffin Plate Death Records

P Surnames Coffin Plate Death Records

Q Surnames Coffin Plate Death Records

R Surnames Coffin Plate Death Records

S Surnames Coffin Plate Death Records

M F

T Surnames Coffin Plate Death Records

V Surnames Coffin Plate Death Records

W Surnames Coffin Plate Death Records

England

Coffin Plate Records on Other Sites

Where Can I Find More Online Death Records? As far as I know I'm the only site that has such a huge collection of Coffin Plates online. I add more every week so be sure to BOOKMARK this coffin plate death records page so you can come back to check for new records. Meantime, you might want to search these death records for your ancestor: Free Trial on Ancestry.com. Ancestry has more genealogy records than any site on the net and they often have free trials and special promotions. Funeral Cards Genealogy Today has a huge collection of funeral cards as well as other great genealogical data. Social Security Death Index Rootsweb.com

Share Your Death Records

If you have a transcription or a photo of death records (cemetery listings, funeral cards, death cards, coffin plates, church records etc) help build this database by submitting your death records

***You must delete the word REMOVE in my email address before sending to me or it won't work. So the real address is ancestorsatrest followed by the @ then the last bit gmail.com Sorry but spammers make this roundabout method of emailing necessary!***

This Data Base is an ongoing project and I have many more coffin plates to add so check back often.