Graves, cenotaphs, and monuments at Find a Grave

Remembering Leslie Leister died 1916

Nov 17, 2024

On ‘Find a Grave‘, a large international database of graves, their locations, and their inscriptions, a person may have more than one gravesite and memorial, for memorial markers are not necessarily erected only at the site of the person’s physical remains.

A cenotaph is a marker placed in honour of a person whose remains are elsewhere. There may have been a re-interment somewhere else; a person’s ashes might be scattered after cremation; or a memorial might record the death of someone–usually a family member–who died at a different place.

In the first and second World Wars, though the bodies of Australian soldiers were usually interred where they were killed, or nearby, their names were sometimes inscribed on the tombstone of their family in Australia.

For example, Leslie Leister, the great uncle of my husband, killed and buried in France at the Battle of Fromelles in 1916, has his name on the gravestone of his grandparents in Parkes, New South Wales.

Leslie Leister, photograph from a cousin’s family album

Gravestone at Parkes photographed March 2009. The inscription reads: In memory of our dear father John Way died June 11, 1911: aged 76. And our dear mother Sarah Way died April 7,1895. Aged 58. Also our dear brother John, died April 21, 1896, aged 24. Erected as a memorial of our loving nephew Leslie Leister killed in action in France July 20,1916. Aged 22. At rest.

When Leslie and more than 2,000 other soldiers were killed on the attack at Fromelles it was summer and the rotting bodies were quickly buried in mass graves. This service performed to their dead enemies, the Germans sent the dead soldiers’ identity tags through the Red Cross to the Australian authorities so their relatives could be informed. Leslie Leister was on the Red Cross list.

Although many bodies were recovered after the war and reburied in cemeteries of the Imperial War Graves Commission, the bodies at Fromelles were not. Lambis Englezos, an amateur historian from Melbourne, began a project to find the burial pit. Eventually he convinced the Australian government to commission an excavation. The bodies were located and reinterred, with DNA samples taken for identification.

In 2009, the remains of 250 Commonwealth soldiers were recovered from a mass grave near Pheasant Wood in Fromelles, buried after the Battle of Fromelles in 1916. Most of the soldiers have been identified using DNA, forensic science, and historical data. Among those identified in 2010 was Leslie Leister. He is now buried in Fromelles (Pheasant Wood) Military Cemetery. The inscription chosen for his grave there is the inscription on the family grave in Parkes.

Leslie was originally listed by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission as ‘No Known Grave’ and commemorated at V.C. Corner Australian Cemetery and Memorial (Panel No 13).

Image of record from Commonwealth War Graves Commission

A cousin attended attended the dedication ceremony at Fromelles in July 2010 and shared a picture of Leslie’s grave Leslie Leister was recorded on his headstone as a Private as there is no technical rank of “acting” Corporal and all the major official documents refer to him as a Private

Leslie is also listed at the Australian War Memorial on panel 161.

There are three records for Leslie Leister on Find a Grave: Australian War Memorial Memorial #249815979, Fromelles Memorial #56348349, Parkes Memorial #123550859

Find a Grave distinguishes monuments and cenotaphs with a tag designating these as separate from a grave.

A Monument is a marker or structure erected in honor of a group of people with something in common whose remains lie elsewhere. These structures are generally within cemeteries. These could be national monuments which often include thousands of names. Other times these are structures or headstones that list a smaller number of people with something in common.

The Find a Grave record for Leslie’s listing at the Australian War Memorial is correctly designated as a “monument”; he is remembered on the national listing, one of tens of thousands of names.

The three records refer to one person and should be linked. The primary record should be the grave. Other records should link to it. This is done with hyperlinks. Find a Grave accepts only hyperlinks within its own website.

I edited the record at Parkes to show it was a cenotaph, not a grave, and also linked to the other two records. I also edited the record for the Australian War Memorial linking to the grave and the memorial at Parkes.

Linking to other memorials; note Find a Grave only accepts hyperlinks from within findagrave.com

To do this, I opened the Edit Memorial page, scrolled down under Gravesite Details and opened ‘Additional grave marker options’. I used the toggle switch to label the memorial as a Cenotaph.

The three memorials are NOT managed by me; I will wait to see if my Find a Grave edits are accepted by the people who managed them.

Anne’s Family History

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Anne’s Family History

Graves, cenotaphs, and monuments at Find a Grave

Remembering Leslie Leister died 1916

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