Don’t suggest cadaver dogs. I’m talking about my aunt, who is burried in a cemetary. I just don’t remember which cemetary. She died in 1979 I think.
You can try the non-famous grave search at FindAGrave.com. They claim to have 14 million grave records.
I don’t have a definitive answer, but would suggest that if you have a short list of possible cemetaries the owners of them should know who is buried where. If you know what funeral home was used, they may have some information, although likely not from almost 30 years ago. Otherwise, I don’t think there is usually any government record of who is buried where.
The death cert. may indicate which funeral home was involved. They should have records. If you can find the obit., it should tell you. As Baracus suggested, you could try each cemetary in the area. All thse things are difficult unless you lcan do them in person.
Family or friends if you know any. Church records, if she was a member. Finally, you could get involved in your familygenealogy and you may find out that way.
A lot of counties and cities have their own genealogy web sites, and often they have lists of local cemeteries and those buried in them.
Here’s a good starting point:
Thank you all for replying. None of your suggestions has panned out yet, but now I think I remember the name of the cemetary, and the funeral home. If I could remember when she died, I could call either of them and ask.
I don’t have access to the death certificates for her or my uncle. He outlived her by only a month or two, and they had no kids together. He had two sons from an earlier marriage that I never met. I’d guess one of them would have that stuff, although I did find a obituary from last year that might have been one of them.
If you know the name of the cemetery, you should be able to contact them directly. Unless it’s old and abandoned, they will have detailed records of who is buried, and be able to show you the exact plot.
You should be able to get a copy of the death cert. for a small fee, typically around 10-20 bucks. You should be able to find an address for obtaining copies by opening the Genweb site that I posted above, click on the state and go from there.
The Social Security Death Index may help immensely, if your aunt was an American who died somewhere in America. This is a free search and will give you the actual date of death and zip code(s) of the area of death. Hope this helps.
An excellent suggestion. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that when the OP said they didn’t know the date of death.
Her death certificate will tell where she was buried/entombed/cremated.
Where to write for vital records.
P.S. cemet-E-ry, no “a”.
This one got it! She died in 1986. I don’t know how I got it that far off. :smack:
The ZIP code is actually the last the Social Security Admnistration had for the number holder while alive. It’s not necessarily where the person died. Nor even necessarily where the person lived — if someone else is handling an elderly person’s financial affairs, such as a child, the ZIP code may be of that caretaker, possibly in a different state.
Well, I got the dates and social security numbers from The Social Security Death Index, but still no burial locations. I guess I’ll have to start calling around.
Thanks all who responded.
If you know the town where she died, contact its town hall. One of the departments there, typically the town clerk or the health department, will have a copy of the burial permit. This permit, which has to be issued before a burial can take place, lists the the name of the cemetery where she’s buried and the town that the cemetery is in. Once you know the cemetery, you can contact its administration to get the plot location.
It’s important to find out the town where she died, as this is often not the same as the town of her last legal residence. In most states, if she died in a hospital in a neighboring municipality, the town where the hospital is located, not the town of residence, would have the burial permit.
In the U.S., I’d think that all records of this kind would be held in the county seat. If there are two counties involved it may take some investigating to find the records.
For you furriners, a county seat is the town designated as the seat of county gov’t., kind of like the capital of the county.
There is a national database, maintained by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, but it is available only for scholarly research, not to the general public. There are too many state restrictions on the release of vital records to have a unified national database available to the general public.
A newspaper obit is another good source for burial info, as obits often state where the burial will take place.