Digging For Answers – November 19, 2009
Where are They Buried?
by Randy Seaver
Welcome to the Digging for Answers column on the Graveyard Rabbit Online Journal.
This column will depend on your submission of questions about cemeteries, gravestones, burial practices, and other topics that concern a Graveyard Rabbit (other than where his next carrot is coming from!). So please send some questions to the editor, who will pass them along and keep the columnist hopping.
A reader wants to know: "My ancestors aren't in online databases, how can I find where they are buried?"
This question was in response to the previous article in this column, The Best Online Databases for Cemeteries.
The research process for finding where persons are buried includes:
- Where did they die?
- What burial provisions were made?
- Are there any records?
How can a researcher determine in which town, city, county, state, or country a person died? The answer to that is to determine where the person lived the last year or so of his/her life, and if there are any records of the death. If there are death certificates available for the state where the person lived or died, obtaining one is the clear first step in the process. The death certificate should state the death date, death location, the funeral arranger, the disposition of the body (e.g., buried, cremated, scattered, or otherwise disposed of), the cemetery name and location, etc.
Other records that may indicate a death location are a newspaper obituary, a newspaper article, a funeral home or mortuary record, or a cemetery record. When deaths occur before death certificates were created, then the newspaper articles may provide some information. In these cases, knowing the religious denomination of the deceased might help the researcher determine potential burial sites.
Burial arrangements are another important factor. Some people have agreements with the rest of the family to be buried in a certain place even if it is remote from where they last lived. In those cases, the death certificate may be the best clue available.
If you cannot find them buried in the locality where they last resided, then it is possible that they are buried near the home of their siblings, parents, or children. My Aunt Geraldine was buried with her parents in Leominster, Massachusetts even though she died and her husband was buried, in Kennebec County, Maine. My Aunt Janet and Uncle Ed died in Sun Lakes, Arizona but were buried in two available spaces with their grandparents in Leominster.
Other people wish to be buried or have their ashes scattered at sea or at a park or favorite spot (whether legal or not), and the records may reflect those wishes. In a few cases, Uncle Charley may be on his dear nephew's fireplace mantle far away from where Charley lived and died.
If there are no death certificates, obituaries, or other records that indicate disposition of the body, then searching for cemetery records near where they lived is the next best option. The researcher should consider manuscript, published or digitized records, in the locality that s/he died, in:
- public or private libraries
- genealogical or historical societies
- family paper collections
- in online databases (see last article!)
In many cases, local genealogical or historical societies have "walked the graveyard" or used the cemetery files to compile lists of the deceased at local cemeteries. These compilations may be on paper, on digital media, or in online databases. An online search for the search string [e.g., "cemetery name" records lists town state] might turn up evidence of the availability of these records in repositories or on digital media. One or more matches might provide a phone number for the cemetery, and a call to the cemetery during business hours might provide information about your target person.
If you are visiting the area where your target person lived, then calling or visiting the local cemetery (or cemeteries) might answer your questions. Be sure to check at any cemetery's business office or sexton office to determine if they have records, or if there are records or lists in a nearby local repository.
If you cannot find your person in a cemetery near the place that s/he lived, then look for places where his parents, siblings and children lived at the time he died, or in places and cemeteries where they are buried.
There are many instances where people are buried in a cemetery or graveyard and the grave marker or stone has been damaged badly, stolen or one was not erected. In this case, cemetery records found in a sexton's office or a repository are the only way to determine where your target person is buried. There is a cemetery in San Diego where the gravestones were removed and the cemetery was covered over and made into a community park, and over 2,000 names are listed on six in-ground plaques. One of my great-grandfathers, Charles Auble, is buried in a San Diego cemetery with no gravestone, and the only way I found that out was from the cemetery office records.
The search for the burial place of our ancestors is often long and difficult. Make a research log for your search that highlights localities and databases that you have already searched and brainstorm otherl ikely localities where your people might be buried.
There are several excellent articles on this subject in the Ancestry Article Archive in the Learning Center. Please consult:
- No Stone to Leave Unturned, by Michael John Neill
- Locating People in Cemeteries, by George G. Morgan
Until next time, I hope that you have success and fun while Digging for Answers. Now, I need to find where I put my carrot.
3 Comments:
Great article!Contacting the genealogical society in the local you are searching can yield information that you would never find otherwise about cemetery's and burials.Thanks!
This is a nice overview!
It would be useful clearly to distinguish between cemetery records (burial records or records of a plot's being sold) and lists of gravestone incscriptions transcribed by individuals or projects. The latter are often erroneously called "cemetery records."
The vast majority of people buried in the 19th century and earlier were not buried in incorporated cemeteries:
1) Many neighborhood cemeteries were established by area families by mutual consent, sometimes on land where two families' lands adjoined. No "cemetery records" can be expected to exist for these, although in many instances gravestone inscriptions have been transcribed and published somewhere. In some cases a neighborhood person has elected to maintain the cemetery free of weeds and trees, and this person may have a good idea what gravestones are where.
2) By far the most common burial site was the family farm. Some such family cemeteries grew to considerable size over the generations. Many have had markers removed by uncaring subsequent owners and been plowed over. The inscriptions in many (but by no means the majority) where gravestones were erected have been read and published in hard copy and/or on the internet. When area cemeteries were surveyed by the Historical Records Survey and a listing for one's relative cannot be found, burial on the home farm is quite possible.
Of course markers break and fall, and many of us have unearthed gravestones from beneath 8 inches of soil and sod, or surrounded by tree roots.
There are also regional issues. In areas such as the Eastern Shore of MD-VA-lower Delaware, even fieldstone/sandstone was seldom at hand, so existing cemeteries seldom have markers installed before the middle of the 19th century when individuals began businesses providing such monuments with imported materials.
We recently made a trip to ND and visited many, many rural cemeteries. We located the family plot of my GG and GGG Grandmother. We have never been able to locate GG Grandpa~until possibly now. The family plot has 8 to 10 resting places. We unearthed one footstone and now six gravesites are visible. While probing around, we discovered what we think is another gravesite. We dug down just to underneath the level of the sod and found, we think, a cinderblock. It had "Hollowblock" on it and then under it was "Patd June 6, 1905", which we took as meaning patented. Does anyone know if this is common to be in a gravesite? We think maybe our GG grandfather's tombstone may have been overturned and this may be part of it? We are in process now of being able to meet with the Sexton to go over the cemetery records of burials back in the early 1900's. We didn't want to disturb what may have been a grave, so will search by every method possible until we know more. Then we would like to have an actual tombstone placed there. Any ideas or help would be appreciated!
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