Your Guide to Researching Cemetery & Funeral Home Records

Read some guides to resarching in cemeteries:

• Swisher. Cemetery Reading Tips
• Swisher. How Not to Conduct a Cemetery Research Trip
• Meyerink; Cemetery Research On Site and On the Trip
• Neill. Finding the Stone.
• Ancestors Segment: Cemeteries (use links on right of page; some video segmentsw)
• Morgan. Cemetery Iconography and Tombstones are Secondary Sources
• Zimmerman. Tombstone Meanings by Maggie Stewart Zimmerman
• Cemeteries and Cemetery Symbols
• Locating Cemeteries and Cemetery records
• Family History Library Research Guide: Cemeteries
• Cemetery and Cemetery Symbols (a blog by Joe Beine, and anything by Joe Beine is good)

There is even a whole book on the topic: DeBartolo. Your Guide to Cemetery Research. ( Find in a library ) (review of book)

Locating a Cemetery

• U.S. G.S.GNIS system query form (once you find a cemetery, be sure to click on one of the mapping services to see where it is )
• See what information is available on US Gen Web
• See what has been published for the state or area -- use OCLC WorldCat and type in the name of the locality and the word cemeteries, e.g. Lapeer Cemeteries. If the locality name is too common, e.g. Washington, add the state. So your search might be Cemeteries Washington Ohio
• Write or visit the web page of the local genealogy society
• For more information, see Kimberly Powell's About.com page How to Locate a Cemetery (turn on your pop up blocker first!)
• For currently maintained cemeteries, search funeral.net's cemetery search
• Consult one of these reference books:
  • Cemeteries of the U.S. (out of print) (Find in a Library)
  • United States Cemetery Address Book (out of print) (Find in a Library

Published Transcriptions

Transcripts may be of tombstone readings, sexton's records, a combination of the two; it may also include information from other records.

• D.A.R. -- search the National Index which serves as an online index to their thousands of volumes.
• In periodicals-- use PERSI (at Ancestry.com or Heritage Quest)
• What's in the LDS Library catalog in Salt Lake City -- use the place search, then topic cemeteries. Be sure to search the town, city, or village (view related places) as well as the county!
• What is in a local library? Let's look at Lapeer Michigan.
• USGenWeb Tombstone Project
• See what is on the US GenWeb state/county pages -- transcriptions and lookups
• Write the local society

Cemetery Records Online

• Interment.net Search and browse cemetery burial records from thousands of cemeteries across the world.
• Cemetery Junction
• African American Cemeteries Online
• FindAGrave
• Obituary Central's Cemetery Search
• The Political Graveyard

Graveyard Associatons

• New Hampshire old Graveyard Association
• Connecticut Gravestone Network
• Association for Gravestone Studies has a listing of associations for other states.
• Saving Cemeteries

Funeral Homes

• U.S. Funerals Online
• Funeral.Net
• Directory of Funeral Homes

More Links

Cyndi's list topic: Cemeteries & Funeral Homes

Links to Resources on Cemetery History and Preservation

 

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Page last updated September 1, 2010