How to Locate Dead Relatives
Finding the grave of a long-lost relative is now possible online though sites that list graves, death records, cemeteries, the Department of Veterans Affairs, funeral homes and even city governments that own cemeteries.
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Instructions
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Finding Family Graves
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Enter the person's name at www.findagrave.com to see if they are listed in the site's substantial database. If the person is listed, this site shows you a picture of the grave itself. The information is gathered by thousands of volunteers, genealogists and local historians. You can add information to the site, too, if you care to participate. If the site does not have the information, it will refer you to ancestry.com.
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Visit ancestry.com and sign up for the free trial period. You will be allowed to search the Social Security Death Index, which records the deaths of people who had Social Security cards. The Index notes where the person lived, and you can use that information to try to track down their grave.
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Consult family members, especially older ones, about grave locations. Record where the deceased person lived and whether they were in the military, as that information can be used to locate unknown grave sites.
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Contact cemeteries in the county where the deceased person lived, or in the town where he lived. Many cemeteries have staff that maintain careful records of everyone interred. Consult local yellow pages for phone numbers, or try www.graveyards.com, which attempts to list as many cemeteries as possible along with pictures and Global Positioning System (GPS) data. No addresses are provided; nevertheless, the list of sites alone helps you to begin a search. Some cemeteries have well-developed websites, but letters, phone calls and footwork is often necessary.
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Contact the Department of Veterans Affairs at www.va.gov, where they offer a Nationwide Gravesite Locator under Veteran Services. If the person was buried in a VA national, state, military or Department of the Interior cemetery, or has a government grave marker, he may be located in the database. You will need to type in the person's name, with additional details optional. The VA will tell you when he served and in which branch of the service, his birth and death dates, and the cemetery where he's interred.
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Ask at the funeral home that the family uses, and inquire with local genealogical societies, often found at local libraries and historical societies. They collect burial records from closed funeral homes and cemeteries that do not have regular staff.
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Consult with the local city government, if it owns cemeteries. For example, Tallahassee, Fla., offers a search function for city cemeteries at its website, www.talgov.com. Links to the cemeteries are provided near the right side of the page.
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