How to Find Cemetery and Burial Records Online Free

The fastest free cemetery searches are Find a Grave and BillionGraves (volunteer headstone photos), Interment.net (transcribed burial registers), and FamilySearch (which indexes all of the above plus church and municipal burial books) — all free. When the websites run dry, the cemetery's own office or the town clerk holds the sexton's register, which records every burial, including graves that never got a stone.

This guide covers each source, what a burial record actually proves, and the workflow that finds a grave even when you don't know the cemetery. Because cemetery plots are bought by families and filled across generations, one found grave often unravels a whole branch — and the free family relationship calculator on our homepage helps you name every connection the plot reveals.

The two kinds of cemetery records (know which you're reading)

"Cemetery records" covers two different things, and the difference decides how far you can trust a date:

1. Headstone transcriptions and photos — what Find a Grave and BillionGraves collect. A stone is good evidence, but it was carved after death, sometimes years after, from a family member's memory. Stones for people who died decades apart were sometimes carved on the same day.
2. Burial registers (sexton's books, interment records, plot deeds) — the cemetery's own business records: who was buried, when, in which plot, and who owned the plot. These were written at the time of burial, which makes them stronger evidence, and they include unmarked graves — a huge share of all burials, especially infants and the poor.

The best research uses both: the photo sites to find the cemetery fast, the register to confirm and to catch the burials no stone marks.

The free websites, in the order to try them

Find a Grave is the biggest and fastest — our Find a Grave search guide covers its filters and free photo requests in detail. BillionGraves duplicates surprisingly little of it, so always check both. FamilySearch is the efficient one: a single free records search there returns hits from both photo sites plus its own vast burial collections in one pass.

Interment.net and USGenWeb are older, plainer sites, but they hold hand-typed transcriptions of thousands of small cemeteries — including register data (plot owners, burial dates) that the photo sites never capture. For rural ancestors, the USGenWeb page for the county is often the only online record of the family graveyard.

For veterans, the VA's National Gravesite Locator searches national cemeteries and private-cemetery graves with government-issued markers, free, with exact section and site numbers.

No cemetery name? Work backward from the death

You can't search a cemetery you can't name. Get it from records that routinely state the burial place:

1. The obituary — nearly always names the cemetery and often the funeral home. Free methods in our obituary search guide.
2. The death certificate — has a "place of burial" field. Many state death indexes and certificate images are free on FamilySearch; see how to find death records free.
3. The funeral home — long-running funeral homes keep records for a century or more and will often check a name by email.
4. Family clues — funeral cards, family Bible notes, and "everyone's buried at St. Mary's" traditions are usually right.

When the answer isn't online: registers, sextons, and clerks

A large share of burial records has never been digitized. Where to ask, free or nearly so:

• Active cemeteries: call or email the office. Ask for the interment record and the plot card — the plot card lists everyone in the plot and who bought it, which is genealogical gold.
• Church cemeteries: the parish burial register is the record; if the parish closed, the diocese or denominational archive holds the books. Our church records guide explains where each denomination's registers ended up.
• Defunct or municipal cemeteries: the town or county clerk usually inherited the records. County historical and genealogical societies often hold transcriptions too — and their volunteers know exactly which farm the "lost" cemetery is on.
• FamilySearch Centers: free worldwide, with access to microfilmed sexton's records that never made it to the open web.

A polite two-line email with the name and approximate death year gets an answer from most cemetery offices within days.

Reading the plot: the family group in the ground

Here's the real payoff of cemetery research. Families bought plots of four, six, or twelve graves and filled them over fifty years. When you find one ancestor:

• List everyone in the plot (the plot card or the memorial's cemetery page shows neighbors).
• Note shared surnames and in-law surnames — a married daughter buried beside her parents shows up under a surname you may not know yet.
• Watch for infants — children who died young often appear only here, in no census at all.
• Name every relationship. A plot might hold your great-great-grandparents, their son, his wife, and a granddaughter — and the free CousinChart calculator turns each one into an exact term (that granddaughter would be your first cousin twice removed) so your notes stay straight.

Visiting in person: getting the most from a cemetery trip

When a burial matters enough — a brick-wall ancestor, an unphotographed stone — nothing beats standing in the row. A few field habits make the trip count:

• Go prepared. Print the plot/section info from the website or the office, and bring a camera, water for gently rinsing (not scrubbing) a dirty stone, and a notebook.
• Photograph in context. Shoot the stone straight-on, then the whole row, then the view back toward a landmark. Six months later, "which grave was next to whose" will matter.
• Use angled light. Weathered inscriptions that are invisible at noon often pop at early morning or late afternoon when shadows rake across the carving. A big mirror or even a phone flashlight held at a low angle recreates the effect any time of day.
• Don't do rubbings or apply anything (shaving cream, chalk, wire brushes) — many cemeteries prohibit rubbings because they damage fragile stone, and residues accelerate decay. Light and water are enough.
• Stop at the office on the way out. Ask for the plot card while you're there — in person, most offices will photocopy it on the spot.

Then upload your photos to Find a Grave or BillionGraves: the next researcher in your family will find them waiting.

Common tombstone abbreviations decoded

Old stones compress a lot into a few carved characters:

"Consort" versus "relict" quietly tells you the order of a couple's deaths — a fact that decides which spouse's probate file to hunt first.

FAQ

Where can I search cemetery records online for free?

Find a Grave, BillionGraves, Interment.net, USGenWeb county pages, and FamilySearch are all free. FamilySearch is the most efficient single search because it indexes the photo sites plus church and municipal burial registers.

Are cemetery burial records public?

Generally yes in practice: headstones are publicly visible, and most cemetery offices, town clerks, and church archives will share interment information on request. Policies vary by cemetery, but a name-and-year email is usually answered free.

How do I find where someone is buried with just a name?

Search Find a Grave and BillionGraves by name and state. If that fails, find the obituary or death certificate — both usually state the cemetery — then contact that cemetery's office for the interment record.

How do I find graves with no headstone?

Ask the cemetery or town clerk for the sexton's register and plot card, which record every burial whether marked or not. Church burial registers and funeral home records also capture unmarked graves.

Are old church burial records online?

Many are. FamilySearch has digitized burial registers from thousands of parishes worldwide, free with a free account. For others, contact the parish, diocese, or denominational archive directly.

What does "interment record" mean?

An interment record is the cemetery's official log of a burial: name, burial date, plot location, and often age, cause of death, and the plot owner. It's made at the time of burial, so it's stronger evidence than a headstone carved later.

Turn one grave into a branch of your tree

Cemetery records reward the thorough: find the stone free on Find a Grave, confirm it in the sexton's register, then read the whole plot as a family group. Every neighbor in the ground is a potential relative — and the free CousinChart relationship calculator tells you exactly which kind, from grandaunts to first cousins twice removed, as fast as you can trace the connections.