If Libindx do not quote a grave number mean the person was cremated or that they just don't have the information.
Bear in mind that not everyone has a headstone, even if they were buried, and that sometimes people who were cremated, or people who are buried elsewhere, are commemorated on a family stone.
The headstone numbering on LIBINDX is the result of a survey of graveyards carried out in 1978/9.
(Notes: The numbers do not relate to any other listing, such as the Lair Books, or the Moray Burial Grounds Research Group or Aberdeen and North of Scotland Family History Society booklets, or the ANESFHS online index of inscriptions. The LIBINDX survey covers all stones readily visible at the time of the survey. The MBGRG lists are much more thorough, because they include some stones which were buried or much harder to read, but they are still a long way from covering all graveyards in Moray.)
The newspaper references were compiled from the various local newspapers, and if the newspaper says that a person was cremated, or which graveyard they were buried in, that is normally included in the LIBINDX entry.
Generally speaking, if the volunteers who are inputting new information can match up a newspaper reference with an existing headstone reference, they do so. However there are still lots of duplicate entries in LIBINDX.
So a newspaper listing without a headstone number could mean either that the person inputting the information did not or could not match the newspaper reference to the headstone reference, or (very much more likely) that there just isn't a headstone.
You cannot assume that a missing headstone means a cremation. Until a few years ago, there was no crematorium nearer than Inverness or Aberdeen, so cremations were the exception rather than the rule.
