Utah Cemeteries

United States Utah  Cemeteries

Cemetery records often include birth, marriage, and death information. They sometimes provide clues about military service, religion, or membership in an organization.

For Utah, there are statewide indexes and collections for many cemeteries. Some of these have been indexed in the Early Church Information File available to browse on Family Search Historical Record Collections

Cemetery Records Contain
Cemetery tombstones, or sexton's records, may give birth and death dates, age at death, name of spouse, names of children, and maiden names. Less often, they contain birth places.

Tombstones may have symbols or insignias indicating military service and social or religious affiliations.

There are also abbreviations that give clues when deciphered. The Association of Gravestone Studies (AGS) has recommendations on the treatment and care of tombstones when needing to make inscriptions more visible.

Use cemetery records to:


 * Identify children who died young or women who were not recorded in birth or death records.
 * Establish family relationships and locate family members.
 * Learn a person's religious affiliations, military service, or social (Masonic, fraternal, or other) organizations the person joined.

Utah sites

 * Utah Cemeteries and Burial Database is a state database of names who are buried in Utah. It is created by the cemeteries digitizing the sexton's records or those cemeteries whose records are digitized to donate them to the database. If groups or individuals offer to survey a cemetery, they must obtain permission from the cemetery.
 * Utah Gravestones The mission of this project is to capture digital images of gravestones of our ancestors.
 * Interment.net This site has minimal records of burials for the following counties: Beaver, Box Elder, Cache, Grand, Iron, Salt Lake, Sevier, Summit, Tooele, Uintah, Utah, and Weber. Not all the cemeteries are listed for the above counties.
 * You will find any veteran throughout the state that served in the federal unit. This included the Indian wars through the beginning of Viet Nam conflict.

National Sites

 * BillionGravescan be searched by name, surname, or cemetery. It provides a photo and the GPS location of the grave marker. After find the cemetery of your choice, you can click on the headstone links to view the burials only in that cemetery.
 * Find A Grave can be searched by the name of a person, family or cemetery. Usually gives birth and death dates and often comes with a picture of the tombstone. May also give obituaries, biographical information and names of family members with links to their information in Find A Grave.
 * Interment.net A free online library of cemetery records from thousands of cemeteries across the world, for historical and genealogy research.

Lists of Cemeteries

 * Utah Cemeteries Search is the large database of cemeteries in Utah included on their site. You can search for a cemetery, by a city or town, by the county, or you can search by part of a cemetery name.
 * Utah Home Town Locator Cemeteries appears to be most complete list of cemeteries in Utah. It has large and small cemeteries listed. The link takes you the description of the location with a map to locate and nearby cities and towns. There is no listing of people buried in the cemetery.
 * Names in Stone leads you to a list of cemeteries in alphabetical order. You will find a link to the cemetery's website which may or may not list the people who are buried there. There is an interactive map of the cemetery where you can view family groupings, a unique feature.
 * D'Addezio's Cemetery Junction is a listing of names and addresses of a few cemeteries. Some of the cemeteries have links to the cemetery's web page.
 * Genealogy Trails is a genealogy website with a mission to provide genealogy information for free. Their list of cemeteries has the date the cemetery was established, a map, the GPS coordinates, and driving directions. This website is still growing and you should check back frequently for new additions.
 * Linkpendium is a free website with links to genealogical resources. The state page is divided into county and statewide links. The county link leads you to the cemetery pages for a particular county with some links to tombstones.

Indexes and Records

 * Utah Cemetery and Burial Database. The Utah State History Section of the Utah Department of Community and Culture has a database that contains an index listing of Utah cemeteries and burials.


 * This searchable database contains over a half-million names from many cemeteries scattered throughout Utah. More cemeteries are added periodically for this ongoing project. The standard search is for surname, given name, dates, and places. The results list shows the name of the deceased, birth and death date, and burial place. The long individual display may also include the birthplace, death place, cause of death, relatives, comments, and grave location.


 * The Utah Tombstone Transcription ProjectThe USGenWeb Archives have records from more than 46 Box Elder, Davis, and Washington county cemeteries listed at the Utah Tombstone Transcription Project. This is a county-by-county list of scores of cemeteries. The highlighted cemeteries include tombstone abstracts.


 * This Internet site indexes cemetery abstracts and other items. Select the state of interest, type the name of the ancestor you seek in the "Query" field, and click the Search button. For best results, use the "Search Tips" and examples at the bottom of the web page. The computer will list any matches it finds and give you the option of viewing the full transcript.


 * Cemetery Records of Utah. An important collection of cemetery and burial transcripts for more than a hundred cemeteries, excluding Salt Lake City Cemetery, is:


 * Genealogical Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Cemetery Records of Utah. Salt Lake City: The Society, 1953..


 * The records are listed by cemetery and grouped together by county, the catalog notes provide information for the counties and cemeteries. There is a separate index for each volume. The cemetery listings will give you the name of the deceased, location of the grave, birth date, and the parent or spouse. This has been indexed in the Early Church Information File.

Indexes with records for Salt Lake City Cemetery, the largest cemetery in Utah are:


 * Salt Lake City Cemetery Records, 1847–1992. Orem, Utah: Automated Archives, 1994. This compact disc lists more than 100,000 burials, many of pioneers. The information on this record includes the name of the deceased, birth date and place, death date and place, including addresses, burial date, and burial location in the cemetery.


 * Salt Lake City Cemetery, Salt Lake City Cemetery, 1991. Salt Lake City, Utah: Filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1992. There are two indexes, a computerized listing and a card index. The computerized listing was taken from sexton records and tombstone inscription. Both indexes will give the burial location, leading you to the films of the sexton books. The sexton's records may contain parents, spouse, birth date and place, cause of death, place of death, and attending physician.

Periodicals
Several periodicals have published inscriptions and inventories from Utah cemeteries. These are referenced in the "Places" portion of the Periodical Source Index (PERSI), described in Utah Periodicals.

Veteran Burial Records
There are many indexes of veterans records. The following seem to be a good selection for Utah.


 * 1847–1966 . Veterans with Federal Service Buried in Utah, Territorial to 1966. FamilySearch. Select Residence to search by county.


 * 1847–1986 Utah State Archives and Records Service. Database-Alpha Listing; Veteran Burials. Salt Lake City, Utah: Utah State Archives and Records Service, 1986. This record gives birth and death dates, place of burial, and military service information such as rank, unit, and enlistment and discharge dates. It covers from the 1860s to 1986.


 * 1847–present Nationwide Gravesite Locator is an online service of the US Department of Veterans Affairs. Search for burial locations of veterans and their family members in National Cemeteries, state veterans cemeteries, various other military and Department of Interior cemeteries, and for veterans buried in private cemeteries when the grave is marked with a government grave marker. For Utah, the state cemeteries that are included are Fort Douglas Reserve Center Cemetery and Utah State Veterans Cemetery at Camp Williams.

Cemetery Directories
Cemetery directories help you find the location of cemeteries. Many cemeteries in Utah have the same name as the city. For larger cities, directories help identify the cemeteries. The online listings help with locations and maps.:


 * Utah Home Town Locator Cemeteries appears to be most complete list of cemeteries in Utah. It has large and small cemeteries listed. The link takes you the description of the location with a map to locate and nearby cities and towns. There is no listing of people buried in the cemetery.


 * Utah State History Cemetery Search is the large database of cemeteries in Utah included on their site. You can search for a cemetery, by a city or town, by the county, or you can search by part of a cemetery name.


 * Cemeteries of Utah. N.p., 1983?. . This directory is arranged into three alphabetical lists, one by cemetery name, and the others by the city and the county.

Additional Sources
If you are not able to locate the record of burial in the cemetery records, you may find the burial or death information in the following records:


 * Death Records: Later death records may give the cemetery where the person was buried as well as the date. Usually this is given as the funeral director is responsible for filling this out on the death certificate.
 * Obituaries: Obituaries and death notices will give place a burial and information similar to the cemetery records.