How to Find Out Where Someone Is Buried

Maybe you want to visit a grandparent's grave that no one in the family has seen in decades, confirm a death date for a family tree, or track down the resting place of a Civil War ancestor. Whatever the reason, the question is the same: how do you find out where someone is buried? The encouraging news is that burial locations are among the best-documented facts in American records — between volunteer grave-photography projects, government death records, and cemetery office ledgers, most graves from the last 150 years can be found. Here are nine reliable methods, starting with the fastest free ones.

1. Search Find a Grave First

Find a Grave is the largest gravesite database in the world, with well over 200 million memorials contributed by volunteers who walk cemeteries, photograph headstones, and transcribe the inscriptions. It is completely free to search. Enter the person's name and, if you know them, a birth or death year and a state — searching with too much detail can actually hurt you, so start broad and narrow down.

A good Find a Grave memorial gives you the cemetery name, the plot location (sometimes down to section and lot), a photograph of the headstone, and often links to memorials for the spouse, parents, and children buried nearby — which makes it a family-history tool as much as a grave finder. Two cautions: memorials are volunteer-created, so dates and family links occasionally contain errors, and coverage is thinner for very recent burials and for small rural or abandoned cemeteries that no volunteer has photographed yet. Treat a memorial as a strong lead to verify, not a final source.

2. Cross-Check with BillionGraves

BillionGraves is the other major volunteer project, and its distinguishing feature is that every headstone photo is taken with a smartphone app that records exact GPS coordinates. If the grave you're looking for is in BillionGraves, you can navigate to the precise spot in the cemetery with your phone — a huge help in large cemeteries with thousands of markers and no posted maps. Basic searching is free. Because Find a Grave and BillionGraves are built by different volunteers, a grave missing from one is sometimes in the other, so always check both before moving on to paper records.

3. Get the Death Certificate

When the online databases come up empty, the death certificate is your most authoritative source. In nearly every U.S. state, the certificate includes a section on the disposition of the body that names the cemetery or crematory and the funeral home that handled arrangements. That single document usually solves the entire mystery.

Death certificates are issued by the state or county where the death occurred, not where the person lived. The CDC's National Center for Health Statistics maintains a state-by-state "Where to Write for Vital Records" guide listing each state's vital records office, fees (typically $10–$30), and how far back their files go — most states began statewide death registration between roughly 1880 and 1920. Many states restrict recent certificates to close relatives, but older records generally become public: for example, informational or non-certified copies are widely available to genealogists once a set number of years has passed. For deaths before statewide registration, check the county clerk or county health department, which often kept death registers earlier than the state did.

4. Find the Obituary

Obituaries routinely end with a line like "Interment will follow at Oak Hill Cemetery" — and they also name the funeral home, the survivors, and the church, all of which are further leads. For deaths from roughly the last 25 years, search Legacy.com, which hosts obituaries for thousands of newspapers, and try a plain web search of the name plus the town and "obituary."

For older deaths, turn to digitized historical newspapers. Chronicling America from the Library of Congress is free and covers papers back into the 1700s, and many public libraries give cardholders free remote access to paid archives. Our guide to free historical newspaper archives walks through the best options state by state. If the paper isn't digitized, the public library in the town where the person died almost certainly has it on microfilm, and many libraries will do a quick obituary lookup by email for free or a small copying fee.

5. Call the Cemetery Office

If you know (or strongly suspect) the cemetery but can't find the plot, contact the cemetery office directly. Active cemeteries keep interment registers and plot maps going back to their founding, recording who is buried in each grave, the burial date, and often the next of kin who purchased the lot — including burials that never got a headstone, which no photography project can capture. Municipal cemeteries are usually managed by the city or town clerk or the parks department; for church cemeteries, contact the parish office. Staff at most cemeteries will check the register for a name at no charge, and larger cemeteries often provide a printed map with the grave marked.

6. Check Church and Parish Registers

Before civil death registration existed, churches were the record keepers. Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, and many other denominations kept burial registers alongside their baptism and marriage books, typically recording the death date, burial date, age, and burial place. If your ancestor died before your state issued death certificates, the parish register may be the only written record of the burial. Start with the congregation the family attended; if it has closed, its books were usually transferred to the diocese, synod, or a denominational archive. Many registers have also been microfilmed and digitized by FamilySearch (see below). Be prepared for old, sometimes difficult script in early registers — our guide on how to read old handwriting can help you decipher them.

7. Veterans: Use the VA National Gravesite Locator

If the person served in the U.S. military, check the Department of Veterans Affairs National Gravesite Locator. This free database covers burials in VA national cemeteries since the Civil War, plus state veterans cemeteries and — importantly — many private-cemetery graves marked with a government headstone, since the VA has records of the markers it supplied (mostly 1997 onward for private cemeteries). Results include the cemetery name and address and usually the section and site number. For soldiers buried overseas in the two World Wars, search the American Battle Monuments Commission's burial database at abmc.gov, which covers American military cemeteries abroad and the tablets of the missing. Arlington National Cemetery also has its own searchable gravesite locator on its website.

8. Ask the Funeral Home

Funeral homes keep detailed case files — often permanently — that record where the body was buried or the cremated remains were delivered. If an obituary or death certificate names the funeral home, a phone call is often all it takes. Funeral homes are also remarkably stable small businesses: many operate for a century or more under gradually changing names, and when one closes, a successor firm in the same town usually absorbs its records. If you only know the town, an old city directory can tell you which funeral homes operated there when the person died; see our guide to using old city directories for how to find them.

9. Use Historical Society Cemetery Transcriptions

For old, rural, abandoned, or family cemeteries — the ones most likely to be missing from every online database — local historical and genealogical societies are the best resource there is. For decades, society volunteers have conducted cemetery transcription projects: walking every cemetery in the county, copying each inscription, and publishing the results in books, newsletters, and card files. These transcriptions often preserve inscriptions from stones that have since crumbled, sunk, or vanished entirely. Many societies also hold burial-permit files, sexton's records from defunct cemeteries, and hand-drawn plot maps that exist nowhere else.

Contact the society in the county where the person died and ask whether they have a cemetery index — many will do a name lookup for free or a few dollars. You can find the right organization in our directory of historical societies by state. Volunteer-transcribed cemetery lists are also posted free on the long-running Interment.net and on county USGenWeb pages at usgenweb.org.

Tips When the Grave Is Hard to Find

• Search name variations. Headstones and registers use initials, nicknames, maiden names, and misspellings. Try "Wm." for William, the maiden name for a married woman, and phonetic spellings of immigrant surnames.
• Consider cremation. Roughly half of Americans are now cremated, and remains may be scattered or kept privately rather than interred. The death certificate and funeral home record will say what happened.
• Check where the spouse is buried. Couples usually bought adjoining plots. If you can find one spouse, the other is very often in the same lot — even if unmarked.
• Look for reburials. Graves were sometimes moved when highways, reservoirs, or developments displaced old cemeteries. County histories and historical societies document these relocations.
• No stone doesn't mean no record. Many burials were never marked or the marker was lost. The cemetery's interment register still lists the grave.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can I find where someone is buried for free?

Search Find a Grave and BillionGraves first — both are free and cover hundreds of millions of graves. Then look for the obituary in free newspaper archives like Chronicling America or via your library, check the VA National Gravesite Locator for veterans, and ask the local historical society whether its cemetery transcriptions include the name.

Does a death certificate say where someone is buried?

Yes. U.S. death certificates include a disposition section naming the cemetery or crematory and the funeral home. Order a copy from the vital records office of the state where the death occurred; the CDC's "Where to Write for Vital Records" page lists every state office and its fees.

How do I find a grave with no headstone?

Contact the cemetery office. Interment registers and plot maps record every burial, including unmarked ones. For closed or abandoned cemeteries, the sexton's records often ended up with the town clerk or the county historical society.

How do I find where a veteran is buried?

Use the free VA National Gravesite Locator at gravelocator.cem.va.gov, which covers national and state veterans cemeteries and many government-marked graves in private cemeteries. For World War I and II service members buried overseas, search the American Battle Monuments Commission database at abmc.gov.