Glossary of Terms

Below is a list of terms that we feel are important when it comes to the knowledge about a cemetery. These will help you understand a little bit about the important factors involved in a cemetery. 

Ashes or Cremated Remains: the product of reducing the human body through cremation.

Casket/Coffin: a box or chest for burying human remains. 

Cemetery Services: opening and closing graves, crypts, or niches; setting vaults; setting markers; and long-term maintenance of cemetery grounds and facilities. 

Chapel Service: a service to commemorate the deceased held in our chapel.  Do not choose this option if you prefer to see the casket lowered into the vault.

Columbarium: a structure with compartments or niches (small spaces) for placement of ashes or cremated remains in urns or other approved containers. It may be outdoors or part of a mausoleum.

Cremation: exposing human remains and the container holding them to extreme heat and flame and processing the resulting bone fragments to a uniform size and consistency.

Crypt: a space or compartment in a mausoleum or other building to hold casketed whole human remains.

Entombment: burial in a mausoleum.

Grave: a space in the ground in a cemetery for the burial of human or cremated remains.

Graveside Service: a service to commemorate the deceased held at the gravesite.  Usually includes a tent and chairs.  Choose this option if you prefer to see the casket lowered into the grave.  Burial immediately follows.

Interment: burial in the ground, inurnment, or entombment. 

Inurnment: the placing of cremated remains in an urn.

Mausoleum: a building in which human remains are buried (entombed) in compartments or crypts.

Niche: a space or compartment in a columbarium, mausoleum, or niche wall to hold an urn.

Perpetual Care Fund: Moneys collected from cemetery property purchasers and placed in trust for the miantenance and upkeep of the cemetery. The province monitprs the fund and establishes the minimum amount that must be collected; however, the cemetery is permitted to collect more than the minimum to build the fund. Only the interest earned by such funds may be used for the care, maintenance, and embellishment of the cemetery.

Urn: a container to hold cremated remains. It can be placed in a columbarium or mausoleum, or it can be buried in the ground.

Vault: a cover that completely encloses a casket in a grave.