Photos: Final resting place for L.A. County’s unclaimed dead

Cemetery caretaker Albert Gaskin stands in a room where hundreds of boxes are stored, each containing the ashes of a person who has been cremated by L.A. County.  (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

L.A. County’s cemetery and crematory in Boyle Heights receives about six bodies each day. Each body is given a cremation number, then recorded in a handwritten log.  (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Albert Gaskin, an employee at L.A. County’s cemetery, holds a “Register of Burials,” stored in a safe at the facility among other ledgers documenting the county’s cremated and buried.  (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Officials from the Department of Public Health, which oversees the morgue and the Department of Decedent Affairs, said they are working to digitize many of their handwritten records.   (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Each entry in the register includes the cremation number and the dates of the cremation and the cremation permit. The person’s name comes next, then date of birth, sex, race and date of death.  (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

The remains of infants who were cremated by the county are kept in neatly folded paper bags, then put away in drawers until they are either claimed or buried.  (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

A worker paints the inside of a small chapel where families can mourn the loss of loved ones at the Los Angeles County Crematory and Cemetery in the Boyle Heights.  (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Albert Gaskin, left, and another cemetery caretaker load a body into the crematory.  (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Cemetery caretaker Albert Gaskin mops the floor of the room where bodies are taken before they are cremated.  (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)