How Do You Find Out Where Someone Is Buried in the UK?

Detailed Explanation

This page covers the records and search tools in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. For the general method that works in any country, see how do you find out where someone is buried.

In the UK, the body that runs a burial ground keeps its register. For most cemeteries opened since the mid-1800s that's the local council, usually through a bereavement services or cemeteries team. Churchyards are recorded by the parish, and some cemeteries are run by private companies or trusts. There's no single national burial database, so the first step is working out which council or parish covered the place where the person lived or died.

Search the council's burial records

Most councils that run cemeteries publish some way to search them. Some have a free online search, some host their registers on a paid genealogy service, and some take enquiries by email or phone. Searching the council's website for "burial records" or "bereavement services" usually finds the right page. A register entry typically gives the date of burial, the cemetery, and the grave or section number, and often the name of the grave owner.

Public access to these registers is set out in law:

• England and Wales. Under the Local Authorities' Cemeteries Order 1977, a burial authority must keep its registers and plans, and make the registers available for inspection by anyone, free of charge, at reasonable times. It can charge for searches it does for you and for certified copies.
• Scotland. Under section 10 of the Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Act 2016, fully in force since March 2025, burial authorities must keep a register for each burial ground, keep it indefinitely, and let the public inspect it for a reasonable charge, if any.
• Northern Ireland. Councils keep their own cemetery records. Belfast City Council, for example, has an online search of City Cemetery, Roselawn, and Dundonald records going back to 1869.

Deceased Online, a commercial site, holds digitised registers from a number of councils and other burial authorities. It offers a free basic search and charges to view full records.

Confirm the death through the GRO index or ScotlandsPeople

If you don't know which council to try, confirm the death first. The death certificate won't name the cemetery, but it shows the registration district, which tells you roughly where to look.

• England and Wales. The General Register Office's online index of historical deaths from 1837 to 1957 is free to search, and the volunteer FreeBMD project has transcribed the indexes further forward. The index reference lets you order the full certificate from the GRO.
• Scotland. ScotlandsPeople, run by National Records of Scotland, holds civil death registrations from 1855. Entries from 1855 alone include the place of burial and the undertaker, which is a real help if the death happened that year.

Look in church and parish registers for older burials

Civil registration began in 1837 in England and Wales and in 1855 in Scotland. Before that, parish registers are usually the only record of a burial.

• In England and Wales, Church of England burial registers are often held by county or local record offices rather than the church. The National Archives' research guide explains how to identify the parish and the archive, and notes that registers of non-conformist burials are held at The National Archives.
• In Scotland, the Church of Scotland's Old Parish Registers of deaths and burials are searchable on ScotlandsPeople. Coverage is patchy: it's estimated that around a third of parishes have no surviving death or burial registers, and many entries record only a name and a date, or a fee paid for the mortcloth used to cover the coffin.

Check newspaper notices

A death or funeral notice in a local paper often names the church, cemetery, or crematorium. Many local libraries and record offices hold runs of local newspapers, and large collections of British newspapers have been digitised and can be searched online, usually by subscription or free at a library.

War graves

For service personnel who died in the First or Second World War, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission has a free search of around 1.7 million Commonwealth war dead, giving the cemetery or memorial and the grave reference. It also includes many war graves in ordinary UK cemeteries and churchyards, not just war cemeteries overseas.

Once you've found where someone is buried, an online memorial can give relatives who can't visit somewhere to share photos and stories about them.

Things to Consider

• Council boundaries have changed. Local government in the UK has been reorganised several times, so the council that runs a cemetery now may not be the one that ran it when the burial took place. Records usually passed to the successor authority.
• Cremation may be the answer. If no burial turns up, the person may have been cremated. Crematoria keep their own registers, and the funeral director's records may show what happened to the ashes.
• Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate systems. The GRO index covers England and Wales only. Use ScotlandsPeople for Scotland and the General Register Office for Northern Ireland for deaths registered there.
• A grave owner is not the same as the person buried. Council registers often record the grave's owner (the holder of the exclusive right of burial), which can be a useful clue to other family members.

Common Mistakes

• Expecting the death certificate to name the cemetery. Outside 1855 Scottish registrations it won't, so use it to find the registration district, then search that area's councils and parishes.
• Searching only online. Many councils and parishes have registers that were never digitised. An email or phone call to bereavement services or the parish office often finds what a website can't.
• Relying on a single transcription. Volunteer and commercial indexes contain transcription errors. Try spelling variants, and confirm an important result against the original register.
• Looking in the wrong nation's records. Someone who died in Scotland or Northern Ireland won't appear in the England and Wales GRO index, even if the family lived in England.