Genealogists who plan research trips around visitation of cemeteries may find this is a hard pill to swallow – but the fact of the matter is, in Germany and in many other central European countries like Belgium, Holland, Switzerland and Austria, space is too tight to allow the constant expansion of cemeteries. With 83 million people living above ground in Germany, for example; a country the size of our state of Wisconsin, there isn't much room leftover for new burial plots.

The outlines and dimensions of a cemetery are usually constant, kept the same as they have been for hundreds of years. Sometimes the cemetery surrounds the church. In this case, right across the wall from the cemetery there could be homes, businesses and streets. There just isn't any room for expansion. Even when the cemetery is located on the edge of the town it's oftentimes competing with homes, apartment buildings and industrial parks for space.

So what the Germans and many of the other Europeans do, is after a period of about 15-20 years, if the family no longer pays for the upkeep and ``rental" of the burial plot, the remains of the person buried there are removed, the headstone is taken away, and a new person is buried in that spot. The removal of remains is made a little easier by the fact that unlike here in the USA, people are not buried in thick, concrete vaults, along with a coffin. In Germany, after 15 or 20 years, the leftovers from a person's mortal life could probably fit inside a shoebox.

In some towns, these remains are placed into a common grave, which is marked but not catalogued. So in other words, if a genealogist has fantasies about going to Germany and finding dead relatives in the cemetery from the 1800s or even the early 1900s, those dreams need to be held in check against the possibility that the grave may no longer exist.

Headstones are not always kept around. They may be used as foundations, steps, pieces of roads, and discarded on a pile of rubbish. This is not a reflection of the lack of sentimentality of the Germans, it's just a fact of life as it continues.

Typically, when a person passes on, the daughter or the son of the deceased will take on the responsibility of caring for the plot. These graves are maintained with extreme care and thoughtfulness, with fresh flowers grown right on the grave, a weekly visit to make sure the flowers and other plants are tended, and in some cases, a candle that is lit on the grave for the celebration of the person's birthday. In all cases, German cemeteries resemble parks or flower gardens more than they resemble a final resting place. They are, to put it quite simply, beautiful places to walk through.

When that son or daughter gets to be in their middle or late 50s, the desire to continue tending the grave of their parents dwindles, as they start thinking about their own final resting place. This is the time when usually, that grave is given up for someone else. That someone may or may not be a family member.

In some cases, a grave will have a stone that reads simply ``Familie Meyer." This grave will often times contain the remains of generations of family members, with only the living relatives knowing exactly who is buried there.

Official registration offices are rare and can usually only be found at the very large town cemeteries. In many cases, their records only cover those people currently buried there, and therein lies the paradox. If people only keep their graves for 15-20 years, then how do you know if your ancestor was actually buried there at all, or what that ancestor's wife's name was, or children? The genealogist's best course of action is to get this information not from the dead, but from the living, by brushing up on their German or by (with fingers crossed!) finding someone in the town who can speak English and who can answer questions about the families who have long since been ``recycled."

What happens to some headstones after the person buried beneath them is no longer in the plot? Sometimes, but not always, those headstones are leaned up against the walls of the church.