Cemetery troubled by lack of documents

Steve Moore decided in the 1970s that he wanted his final resting place to be the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery.

Now, a decorative iron fence surrounds his plot.

But it isn’t just for decoration — it’s for protection.

“You keep your turf tended to, make sure nobody moves in,” Moore said.

With approximately 2,000 plots in the cemetery — many of which lack proper ownership documentation —Moore fears someone could successfully move into his space.

Plots in this historic site, located on campus at the corner of South and Country Club roads, were sold until the late 1970s, when all had been purchased. Records at that time consisted of nothing more than a map with names penciled in.

Papers, please

Moore, who is also chairman of the town’s Cemeteries Advisory Board, said he called the cemetery’s record keeper in the 1980s to check up on his plot.

“He said, ‘I kind of have something written here but it doesn’t mean anything,’” Moore said.

He said original documentation concerning ownership is hard to obtain for plots in the cemetery because no bills of sale were given.

But Debra Lane, administrative technician for the cemeteries division of the Chapel Hill Parks and Recreation Department, said some form of documentation is still key when it comes to confirming burial rights to a plot.

“I have to have documentation because that’s what we really rely on out here in Old Chapel Hill (Cemetery),” she said.

“No cousin or anybody can just come in and say, ‘Okay, my uncle John is buried there. I want to be buried there.’ I need proof that Uncle John willed that plot to you.”

But Moore disagrees.

He said no documentation is needed to prove ownership of a plot, and even if it was, most documentation does not exist.

“What (Lane) said she’s supposed to do, in reality, that wouldn’t necessarily be the case,” he said. “How do you prove ownership when there is no basis for ownership?”

Moore said the problem results from inaccurate and incomplete ownership documentation. He said he has papers for his plot, but has no way of knowing if the people he bought it from were the real owners.

“Someone could walk in, claim they owned a plot and there would be no way to disprove them,” he said.

And for plots that Lane said sell for a minimum of $10,000, such a heist could be intriguing.

Searching for proof

The cemetery remained the responsibility of the town’s engineering department until 2007, when it was transferred to Parks and Recreation.

Ernie Rogers, an engineering technician who formerly oversaw the records, attempted to do in-depth research to determine who was buried in the cemetery.

But all he had was the map.

“At that point, they were kind of sketchy as to some of the older plots,” he said.

Moore said Lane does a good job of handling and maintaining the records she has, but most records are hand-me-downs, and many are missing.

Lane said she still verifies records in her database, which contains the names of individuals and families buried in the cemetery. She also questions people who ask to be buried on family plots and can stop a burial from occurring.

But Moore said Lane can neither stop a burial nor require to see documentation about a plot because the plots are privately owned.

He said the poorly kept records could result in plots owned by one family or individual being used by another, a mistake the real owners might realize too late — if ever.

“A smart person could come in, get a family plot out of it, and challenge the town to say they don’t own it,” he said.

“If somebody came in and announced they were a descendent of such-and-such and planned to be buried there, there’s no one to challenge it.”

Moore said Lane is doing what she can with what she has, but she can do very little in reality.

“It’s what she’s got, but it doesn’t mean it’s worth anything.”

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