H is for Halifax (Qld) and Highfields

Posted on by cassmob

Join me on my Cemetery Searching expedition for the 2023 A to Z Blog Challenge. I’ll be re-visiting some cemeteries and preparing for a wish list of others. Some family members will be mentioned but I also have an interest in German family graves as well as those of people born in Co Clare Ireland.

Halifax Cemetery, North Queensland

Halifax is in north Queensland near Ingham. It’s maintained by the Hinchinbrook Council and you can search for burials at this link.

https://www.hinchinbrook.qld.gov.au/community-environment/cemeteries/deceased-search//community-environment/cemeteries/deceased-search/

There are a lot of my Melvin relations buried here, uncles and cousins of my mothers as well as their descendants. There are quite a lot of Scandinavian names among the burials and also an unusual number of mausoleums. These photos were taken by me in 2008.

A touching memorial.

Cabarlah Cemetery, Highfields, Queensland

SItuated on the Darling Downs it is a fairly large cemetery which serves the area to the north of Toowoomba. It is managed by the Toowoomba Regional Council which was a leader in offering online grave searches and now includes images of memorials where they exist. You can search here:

https://www.tr.qld.gov.au/deceased-search

Back in the early 2000s I took many photos in this cemetery and this is a sample. It’s always wonderful when the person’s place of birth is mentioned. Many of the Irish, unfortunately, only offer the county and among the photos I’ve taken there are people from Mayo, Kings, Longford, Kilkenny, Galway, Tipperary, Armagh, Derry, Wicklow, Kildare, Cork and Monaghan. Most of these are in the Catholic section of the cemetery.

Catholic Section

Michael DALTON native of parish of Edgeworthstown, Co Longford.
You do need to be careful: it is Bridget Keating who was native of Carigholt, Co Clare.
Margaret Leahy is a native of Clash Abbeyfeale, Co Limerick. Her husband’s place is given just as Co Limerick.
Margaret Collins was a native of Co Clare. The death indexes tell us her parents her John – and Margaret Keane. However, checking her marriage to Cornelius, her maiden surname was also Collins. You can see an extensive obituary for her here and here.
Mabel Strong, native of Achill Island, Co Mayo and her husband James Strong of Co Donegal

Lutheran Section

As might be expected the Lutheran section is heavily represented with Germans, however you will also find some among the Catholics. One thing to bear in mind with the Germans is that their gravestones will often have the correct, original spelling of their name – not the Anglicised version. It’s also interesting that they are more likely to have inscriptions in German as we can see below.

Maria Mielke nee Polzin born 17 Sept 1847 in Schnizendorf, died Highfields 5 October 1910. (happy to be corrected on this!)
Anna Volp nee Guenzer, born Baden, is one of “my” Dorfprozelten immigrants.

18 thoughts on “H is for Halifax (Qld) and Highfields”

  1. Some marvellous memorials among your pictures. Today’s lawn cemeteries are so boring by comparison but much cheaper to place a headstone and probably to maintain too.

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  2. <

    div dir=”ltr”>Hi Pauleen,

    I think it says Schultzendorf. 

    Have sent to nephews German wife to try to translate for us. 

    <

    div>Bev

    Sent from my iPhone

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    blockquote type=”cite”>

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  6. Maria was born 28 March 1847, Michael was born 17 September 1847. Maria was my late husband’s great grand aunt… a sister to Michael Polzin (my husband’s great grandfather).

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  9. You are fortunate to have the place-name details on those monuments. They are particularly helpful with Irish ancestry. My Irish forebears’ birthplaces were not listed on their stones, and my cousin team is still hard at work trying to find their birthplaces.

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