Research Notes -
Evaluating Cemetery Information

Family historians seek out cemeteries and cemetery information to help them with their research. With the burgeoning of computers and the Internet, transcriptions from more and more cemeteries find their way to the 'web.' As they do with other information sources, family historians must carefully evaluate what they find before adding it to their family trees.

These questions provide a starting point for getting all the possible data from cemetery information.

• Who established the cemetery? When? Who owns it now? Knowing some history of the burial place will help the researcher determine where to look for additional records, such as interment or actuarial books. Records for churchyard cemeteries may appear in other church records, and governmental entities may have them for public cemeteries.

  The kind of records kept by a cemetery can vary from a map with the purchased gravesites marked off, to a fairly complex system. Basic records may include information on which lots have been purchased, the price paid, and the name of the person who bought them. Some cemeteries keep track of whether a stone has been purchased to mark the grave. Others will keep burial permits (or corpse permits issued by a railroad). These often give cause of death, and were part of the state health department's efforts to insure that communicable diseases could not be spread through a burial. In recent years, some cemeteries (including Lakewood in Minneapolis) have placed their records on-line.

  Do remember that the job of the cemetery management is to maintain the cemetery, and not to do genealogical research! Donations are usually accepted, and be sure to include a Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope if you are sending a query via mail.

• Did/Does the cemetery sell family plots or single graves or both? In other words, is the ancestor likely to lie alongside another family member? This may be obvious in some older cemeteries, if you can find the lot markers. Remember that almost any number of burials could be in one family plot, from 2 to 12 or more.

• Is the burial marked or not? One active southern Minnesota cemetery transcriber estimates that 10-15% of burials are unmarked. My own experience suggests that estimate is low.

  In addition, markers don't always survive. We transcribed and photographed family stones in Old Town, Maine, several years ago, only to later hear from a researcher there that vandals had pushed those same stones over, and they had been broken beyond the possibility of repair. Other markers are stolen for their art. If a modern marker is on an old grave, it suggests that someone cares about that family, and may have family information to share.

• Are burials still made in the cemetery? In some areas, local groups such as the Boy Scouts have taken on the task of maintaining older cemeteries which are no longer in use or which have been abandoned. When the W.P.A. in Minnesota surveyed cemeteries, many smaller or family-owned cemeteries had already been abandoned. With the merger of rural congregations, others have joined that list. Other records are more likely to be found easily for active cemeteries.

The classic source on cemeteries in Minnesota is Minnesota Cemetery Locations, compiled by Wiley Pope from county histories, maps, WPA records, and manuscript sources at the Minnesota Historical Society. It's organized by county and township, and provides references for each county on the sources consulted.

© 2007 Park Genealogical Books, Roseville MN

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