Spot.us – In the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, Evergreen Cemetery stands with tombstones held high. Some show inspirational passages, some boast lifetime accomplishments, others carry distinctive photos of the deceased. On weekends – as mariachi music swirls in the air – families come, one by one, paying respects with flowers and finding solace in their loved ones’ final resting place.

Not all of Evergreen’s permanent residents get visitors, however.

For the hundreds of thousands of cremated remains of unclaimed kin buried in a nearby potter’s field, deemed as the Los Angeles County Crematorium and Cemetery, there’s nothing more than a simple marker denoting the year they were put back in the earth. Their names don’t live on tombstones; rather, they are linked with the almost 5,000 other unclaimed bodies currently on the L.A. County Coroner’s list.

All that remains is an identity on paper: their birth and death date, whether their eyes were blue or brown, or their hair was gray or black.

Though technology has allowed the number of cases where family hasn’t been located to decrease in the last four years, the unclaimed log, which dates back to the 1960s, has grown longer as more and more relatives under the strain of the newly dubbed “Great Recession” find they cannot afford costs involved in private ceremonies and burials.

Read the rest here – Unclaimed Kin in Los Angeles Piling Up