Does anyone know if records still exist for any of the old and
inactive Newark cemeteries? I'm interested primarily in the Grove
Street cemetery. Were the original cemetery records transferred to
the public library, or a government agency, or some other
organization? Or just destroyed or lost?

--
Rusty Wilson
Rusty.Wilson1@...

Genners,
In response to Rusty's post, let me set the record straight for
anyone looking for information regarding the Newark, NJ cemeteries.
Alice Gould, our JGS of North Jersey member, and her late husband
Bob, initiated the indexing of the Newark cemeteries many years ago.
Since most records have since disappeared and most areas are
dangerous to visit on your own, Alice arranged for police protection
many times for our North Jersey Society and other volunteers to go
down to Newark and index the headstones. Most of that data is
uploaded to JOWBR.
The Jewish community does arrange for police protection the Sunday
between Rosh Hashanna and Yom Kippur. However, there are over 30,000
graves in all of the non-contiguous cemeteries. Unless you know the
exact location, chances of wandering around and finding a headstone
is slim.
Raiken Epstein is the caretakers of many cemeteries in north New
Jersey. I am hoping that the number given to Rusty for help was
Alice's as they know about, and have cooperated with, the indexing
project. If not, you did not get all the information available.
For Alice's email and to read more about the cemeteries, including
maps, go to the following page on our web site.
http://www.jgsnj.org/newark-cemeteries.html
As Alice's "techie" friend, I also have copies of her data.
If anyone needs more information, do not hesitate to email me.
Susan Kobren
President, Jewish Genealogical Society of North Jersey
http://www.jgsnj.org

From: Rusty Wilson <rusty.wilson1@...>
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 16:20:08 -0400

Thanks to all for the responses on records for formerly-active Newark,
NJ cemeteries. Several people expressed interest in the results, and
for anyone researching people in the Newark area or New Jersey
generally, I've summarized what I learned through various phone calls
and email responses. If anyone has further detail or different
information, please do not hesitate to provide corrections or
additions.
Cemeteries maintain a few types of records. They have a ledger that
typically contains the burial date, the burial location and perhaps a
few other bits of information, and they have a "transit certificate"
that contains perhaps the place of death, the date of death, the
doctor's name, the funeral home name. These are general guidelines -
different cemeteries and different time periods had different pieces
of information, and in early years, the transit certificate was often
discarded after burial without a copy being made first.
It appears unlikely that a cemetery would have any records that would
list family information such as the decedents' relatives, parents,
place of birth, obituary, carefully labeled photos of the extended
family in Ukraine together with birth dates and a short but insightful
paragraph of biographical information, etc.
Once the cemetery ceases operations, its records are transferred
somewhere. Because a cemetery is a private enterprise, records are
never transferred to the state archives. Instead, the state looks for
a private entity. In the case of the Grove Street Cemetery in Newark,
NJ (and for many others), the records were adopted by Raiken Epstein
Memorials, Inc. (908/245-7100). They promptly transferred my call to
a helpful woman who looked up the records (and in my case, found
virtually nothing).
I hope this is helpful. Again, any additional detail or corrections
would be welcome.
Rusty Wilson
Washington, DC