Finding Burial and Cremation Records

[garbfink]

Hi All,

So finding BMD's (in most cases) is pretty easy. However, I struggle to find any records relating to burials and cremations.

Does anybody have any good tips they would like to share?

The vast majority of my ancestors are in the UK.

[rosie99]

Newspapers for obituaries

Deceasedonline

[dawnsh]

Hi garbfink

Finding burials and cremations has always been tricky especially in cities since the 1850's but it is an improving pircture.

So first of all you've got parish registers.

Then when the parishes stopped using their churchyards you need to look for cemeteries either privately owned or minicipal.

For details of these look on the internet for the cemeteries page of the local council website. You may find it's the council or in some instances the parish council who are responsible for maintenance. Some charge for look-ups.

Some councils have started transcribing their own databases.

Some older cemeteries have 'Friends of' organisations who look after the registers and can do look-ups. Some charge for look-ups.

Then look to sites such as www.deceasedonline.com
It's free to search but you have to pay to see more details.

There's a useful topic here

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=403485.0

it's relevant to London & Middlsex but gives an idea of what you need to know for elsewhere

It always helps to have the death cert for exact dates of death, if you don't have this try probate records

https://www.gov.uk/search-will-probate

[garbfink]

Thank you both for some extremely useful information

[Blue70]

It may depend on which part of the UK you are researching. Merseyside (Liverpool, Wirral etc) is covered extensively by Family Search when it comes to 19th century local authority cemeteries. Original burial registers can be accessed at home via Family Search's catalogue. Ancestry has a lot of the C of E and RC burial records for Liverpool. There are also Liverpool burial records on Lancs OPC. 20th century burial research can be more difficult in a lot of places as it may involve a trip to a record office or payment for a burial search. Regardless of any difficulties it's a lot easier now to find burial information.


Blue