Cemeteries: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 18:46, 12 September 2024

Guide to locating cemetery records for ancestry, family history, and genealogy research.

Online Resources

International Collections

What Cemeteries Are

Cemeteries are regarded as the location where people are buried after they die. They are often known by various terms such as graveyards, burying grounds, burial grounds, burial plots, 'churchyards', and several other terms. A cemetery may be operated by a municipality, or it may be operated by a church or religion, a funeral home or other private company, or a fraternal order.

Information in the Records

Cemetery records may provide information such as:

the deceased’s name
date and place of birth and death
age of the deceased at death
place of origin
names of other persons related to the deceased
maiden surname
sometimes marriage information.
clues about military service, religion, occupation
place of residence at time of death
membership in an organization.

Record Types and Content

Headstone Inscriptions

Information recorded on headstones (also known as tombstones or gravestones) may include multiple family members are buried in the same vault and the inscription will give information on all that are buried there. Often, this information has been transcribed, indexed, and published and is found online and in manuscripts and books in libraries and archives.

Published Headstone Inscriptions

Published transcriptions of cemeteries, when available, may include additional information. They often are more complete because tombstones can be lost over time or difficult to read because of weathering and aging of headstones.

Written Records

Written records are information recorded by cemetery officials or caretakers, included in parish and cemetery records recorded by the civil authority. Written records include:

Cemetery sextons' records
Municipal cemetery records
Church yard records
Grave books
Plot books
Maps

How to Find Cemeteries

Not all cemetery tombstones have been transcribed and published online or in book form.
Some cemeteries are located next to a church. If the church name is known, search there first.
Individuals may die in another part of the country. but brought back to their home parish for burial.
Burial places may be mentioned in church records, newspaper announcements, or family histories.
Search directories for possible cemeteries.
Search in atlases, gazetteers, or other maps listing cemeteries.
Google Maps has a large number of English-speaking areas, coverage is incomplete in most other languages.
Many cemeteries maintain a website which will often list operating hours, and some will post burial lists online for those sites.

Records by Location

Search by country:

Category:Cemeteries

Research Strategies

Ways to Read Gravestones

Alternative Gravestone Reading Methods

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- {{Cemetery-stub}}
+{{breadcrumb
-<br>
+| link1=[[Record Types|Record Types]]
+| link2=
+| link3=
+| link4=
+| link5=[[Cemeteries|Cemeteries]]
+}}
+Guide to locating cemetery records for ancestry, family history, and genealogy research.
-Cemeteries are regarded as the location where people are buried after they die. They are often known by various terms such as graveyards, burying grounds, burial grounds, burial plots, 'churchyards', and several other terms. Some of the terms are often used to define smaller cemeteries, such as those that may be adjacent to a church, hence the term 'churchyard' in a few cases for example, with smaller cemeteries, while others apply to all.
+==Online Resources==
+'''International Collections'''<br>
+*[http://www.findagrave.com Find a Grave]
+*[http://www.interment.net Interment.net]
+*[http://www.billiongraves.com BillionGraves]
+*[http://www.waymarking.com/cat/details.aspx?f=1&guid=205c956b-25b3-47fe-9fb1-2c758098e5cb&st=2 Waymarking.com Worldwide Cemeteries]
-A cemetery may be operated by a municipality, or it may be operated by a church or religion, a funeral home or other private company, or a fraternal order. Depending on availability of suitable land, it may be quite small, or it may be very large. Some burial plots may contain only one or several graves, while a few very large ones may have over a million burials.
+==What Cemeteries Are==
+Cemeteries are regarded as the location where people are buried after they die. They are often known by various terms such as graveyards, burying grounds, burial grounds, burial plots, 'churchyards', and several other terms. A cemetery may be operated by a municipality, or it may be operated by a church or religion, a funeral home or other private company, or a fraternal order.
-== Finding Cemeteries  ==
+==Information in the Records==
+'''Cemetery records may provide information such as: '''
+*the deceased’s name
+*date and place of birth and death
+*age of the deceased at death
+*place of origin
+*names of other persons related to the deceased
+*maiden surname
+*sometimes marriage information.
+*clues about military service, religion, occupation
+*place of residence at time of death
+*membership in an organization.
-There are a number of ways to find cemeteries:
+===Record Types and Content===
+====Headstone Inscriptions====
-*Look in phone books or other directories for a location
+Information recorded on headstones (also known as tombstones or gravestones) may include multiple family members are buried in the same vault and the inscription will give information on all that are buried there. Often, this information has been transcribed, indexed, and published and is found online and in manuscripts and books in libraries and archives.
-*Look in atlases, gazetteers, or other maps to see if cemeteries are shown.
+<br>
-*Search for them on Google, which has many listed, but not all. Google Maps has a large number shown on them in English-speaking areas, coverage is incomplete in most other languages.
+====Published Headstone Inscriptions====
-*Use burial databases online, such as those described below to locate not only the cemetery, but often listings or photos of headstones for those buried in them. Coverage varies from site to site, so search in more than one site.
+Published transcriptions of cemeteries, when available, may include additional information. They often are more complete because tombstones can be lost over time or difficult to read because of weathering and aging of headstones.
-=== Websites for Cemetery Research  ===
-The following websites are useful in locating many burials.  Coverage is best in North America, the United Kingdom (Great Britain), and occasional data in some parts of western Europe so any data, especially outside those areas, will eventually prove very helpful to those in the areas not covered presently.  If you wish to contribute data, see the individual sites mentioned below to learn how to contribute and what data is needed and in what form to contribute.  FamilySearch has indexing projects on occasion for funeral home or cemetery records, go to the 'Indexing' tab at the top of the page, above this article, for more information on FamilySearch Indexing.
-==== Individual Cemetery Websites  ====
-Some cemeteries will maintain a website which will often list operating hours, and some will post burial lists online on those sites. Be sure to see if the cemetery you want to find a burial has a website, often this can be found via a search engine.
-==== Find A Grave  ====
-[http://www.findagrave.com Find A Grave] is probably the best known aggregator site for cemetery data. Photos and other information are gathered by site visitors and users and submitted to it. They are then made searchable, and you can search for a burial globally on the site. Coverage depends on the cemetery and the interest in it. May not contain the more recent headstones in some cases.
-==== Interment.net  ====
-[http://www.interment.net Interment.net] is a site where transcriptions of headstones are gathered and placed online. There are no photos, but you can often find listings of burials that can be nearly complete for older or very small cemeteries.
-==== BillionGraves  ====
-[http://www.billiongraves.com BillionGraves] is a newer site that allows anyone to download an app for their iPhone or Android device (for Android users, the website will indicate which Android devices do NOT work with their app, often this can depend on either the wireless carrier or the device, occasionally both), then go out to a cemetery and take pictures of the headstones. The app tags the photos with the GPS location, thus it effectively maps the cemetery, which makes it easy to find the location on the web or on the smartphone app. This site is very new, so coverage is not to the level of Find A Grave or Interment.net, but thousands of headstones are photographed and uploaded every week to the site.
-==== Names in Stone  ====
-[http://www.namesinstone.com Names in Stone] is another site that uses GPS technology to map cemeteries. An additional feature is that the site partners with cemeteries to add new headstone photos to the site on a regular basis since often a cemetery is still having burials take place. There are other mapping features on the site too.
+====Written Records====
+Written records are information recorded by cemetery officials or caretakers, included in parish and cemetery records recorded by the civil authority. Written records include:
+*Cemetery sextons' records
+*Municipal cemetery records
+*Church yard records
+*Grave books
+*Plot books
+*Maps
-==== Waymarking.com Worldwide Cemeteries  ====
+==How to Find Cemeteries==
+*Not all cemetery tombstones have been transcribed and published online or in book form.
+*Some cemeteries are located next to a church. If the church name is known, search there first.
+*Individuals may die in another part of the country. but brought back to their home parish for burial.
+*Burial places may be mentioned in church records, newspaper announcements, or family histories.
+*Search directories for possible cemeteries.
+*Search in atlases, gazetteers, or other maps listing cemeteries.
+*Google Maps has a large number of English-speaking areas, coverage is incomplete in most other languages.
+*Many cemeteries maintain a website which will often list operating hours, and some will post burial lists online for those sites.
-[http://www.waymarking.com/cat/details.aspx?f=1&guid=205c956b-25b3-47fe-9fb1-2c758098e5cb&st=2 Waymarking.com Worldwide Cemeteries] is a new project to geolocate any cemetery or burial place anywhere in the world and 'waymark' it so that anyone can find it should they go to the location. Some locations will have photos, all will have GPS coordinates although in a few cases that can be somewhat off so verify what you find with Google Maps, Bing Maps, or other searchable mapping site. No actual data is here, only the geolocation data and occasionally some other information about the cemetery.
+==Records by Location==
+Search by country:
+*[[:Category:Cemeteries]]
-==== Genealogy and Family History Data Websites  ====
+==Research Strategies==
-In addition to the above, genealogy and family history data websites that have aggregated data on them will often have databases, large and small, of burials, or funeral home records that will often indicate which cemetery the person at the funeral home is buried in. Both [http://www.familysearch.org/ FamilySearch] and [http://www.ancestry.com Ancestry] have databases containing this type of data. The US Genweb Project and World Genweb Project, along with local societies, also will post transcriptions of cemetery data on their websites as well. [http://www.rootsweb.com Rootsweb] also has cemetery transcriptions.
+===Ways to Read Gravestones===
+*[http://www.ourfamiliesroots.org/graves/articles/methods.html Alternative Gravestone Reading Methods]
 [[Category:Cemeteries]]