Find a burial

Public search isn’t open yet.

Jermory is recording its first sites. Once a burial ground is on the record you will be able to search it by name and find a grave down to the plot — but there is nothing to search yet. Below is what to expect, and where to look until then.

What you’ll be able to search

Once a burial ground is on the record, you will be able to search it by name, by date, and by the site itself. A match takes you to the plot — its position on the map, the memorial’s transcribed inscription, and a photograph of the stone as it stands today. Where a plot holds more than one burial, each person is listed. Names that were misread or mis-spelled in the original registers are cross-referenced, so a search still finds them. Every result links back to the site that holds the ground, so once you have found a grave you know exactly who to ask about visiting or about the plot itself.

Where to look in the meantime

Until Jermory reaches the ground you are looking for, a few routes usually work. Start with whoever looks after the site — a burial authority’s bereavement team, a cemetery lodge, or a parish office — since many keep a burial register and a plan and will check a name for you. Your local record office or county archive often holds deposited registers for closed grounds, along with monumental-inscription surveys made by family-history societies. National civil registration of deaths gives you a date and a district to work back from. Volunteer-compiled burial indexes can place a person at a particular ground, which tells you whose office to write to next. Newspaper death notices and probate calendars are worth a look for anyone who left an estate, and they often give an address that narrows down which ground to try.

If you look after a burial ground

You don’t need to wait — bring your site onto the record. Search opens site by site as each survey is finished, so the sooner a ground is mapped, the sooner families can find it. A walkthrough is free and comes with satellite imagery of the site and an estimated plot count.