Help with finding where someone is buried?

[darkmaestro019]

Sorry, I don't know where exactly this would go--this is probably the biggest net I have to throw, is asking you dears here at DU.

I was hoping someone could tell me if there's a registry or something where you can look up where someone is buried? Someone I loved a lot died several years ago; I know his full name, the city where he died, the date, the hospital, etc, but not the cemetary in which he's buried and I haven't the foggiest idea how to go about seeking such data. I'm no relation; the obituary doesn't include funeral home information, and his family was not pleased with my, attention, so I'm not really able to ask them.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Googling various things has gotten me nowhere thus far. I'm going back to that state in a few months and I'd really like to leave him some flowers, say hello, closure, you know. That sort of stuff. : )

Thanks again, and apologies to mods if I have been incorrect in posting this here.

[Sydnie]

1. It should be listed on the death certificate

Perhaps a call to the city/town clerk where he lived/died they could give you that info?

[darkmaestro019]

3. That's a good one. Simple little things that I just don't think of.....

thank you : )

[shraby]

2. Go to this website:

<http://www.usgenweb.org>

Click on the "states" link, then click on the state you need. Once on the state site, click on the county you need. There should be someone you can contact who can find that out for you.

[darkmaestro019]

4. Thanks to both : ) (saves things for when it's not wee hours : )

[REP]

5. Here's Another Good Site:

http://www.findagrave.com

I found several graves there.

[watrwefitinfor]

6. Find the obituary.

If you know the city, find the newspaper's website. Most of them have a search feature for their obits.

Or you might try refining your google search with quotations around your friend's name, and the addition of "obituary" to the search phrase.

Wat

[illuminaughty]

7. Your post really caught my attention

I've been working with a similar problem for about two months and I never thought it would be so difficult. He was killed in a car accident 25 years ago this week, but I was away working on a cruise ship in the Aegean at the time, and those were the days before e-mail and easy international correspondance. It was very sad because I had just seen him about three weeks before I left the country and the next thing I know I'm getting the obit sent by my mother.

Recently I realized I know little about the accident itself and have been doing extensive research.
I finally found his gravesite through a site http://looktothepast.com and this is a very small cemetery with only 179 graves. They have info on Missouri and several surrounding states, but have links that might be helpful.

I've also found much info from the public library. Much more so than my googling.

Also found info at privateeye.com...had to pay about $30, but did find relatives.

I wish you luck and can really empthasize with the situation.

[Hekate]

8. Me, too. My old friend died a year before any obits went online.

On impulse one night in late 2001, I googled the name of someone once dear to me, and his name popped up as a collateral relative on someone's geneology website. To my dismay, he had died 8 years previously -- and apparently both parents and one of his two brothers had also passed away. There was no mistaking that cluster of names.

I've deadended on every online search for an obit that would tell me more -- it seems they went online after he died -- but I will check out the links in this thread just in case I didn't stumble on them already.

The most obvious thing -- to contact his few survivors -- is not something I'm doing, just out of respect for their privacy. They live a thousand miles away, and we've never met.

>sigh< Sometimes ghosts must remain ghostly...

Hekate

[darkmaestro019]

13. I can't really contact the family either--

They didn't know me, and as I've said most of my inquiries have been met with fear and loathing for various reasons. Most who knew both of us know that it's just that I loved him and that I'm not trying to be a creepy stalker, but they don't really know any more information than I do and I have avoided his immediate family and surviving exes. We haven't met and if they've heard of me I'm fairly sure what they heard would have been a bit much for their heterosexual comfort.

[darkmaestro019]

11. I've been really touched by the replies--

I've gotten several PMs. I didn't even know if it was "legal" for a non-relative to seek these sorts of things. I've tried contacting friends of his and a band that he used to photograph pleading for photographs (I have ONE of him and it's not very flattering) and I think I've creeped them out, which was far from my intention.

I'm sorry for your loss.

Mine was a car accident too--a drunk driver hit a van he was driving. Another person in the back lost an eye. The driver was taken to the same hospital David was--TREATED AND RELEASED and he fled back to Guatemala and has never gotten so much as a thump for what he's done. (This is not meant to attack immigrants, legal or illegal--it's meant to attack the HOSPITAL who basically said "That's not our job.")

He had moved to farther south in FL than was feasible for him to continue visiting the clubs and such where we met in North FL, and I hadn't seen him in almost a year when I got the call from a mutual friend who knew how I felt about him. I've never cried that hard in my life. It was fucking horrible, scuse my lack of poetic, but it's like getting shot in the chest or something. Just awful. I was told he was a vegetable from accident on but I found out recently that wasn't true. I almost wish I hadn't. I think I was told that lie to spare me.

[SeattleGirl]

9. I located someone with the info you have.

Google search the cemetaries in that area, and I bet you will find it.

[darkmaestro019]

12. That's so bloody simple that I didn't think of that, either.

This is exactly what I needed--fresh eyes. Kinda like when you've been looking for your glasses for two hours and someone finally kindly tells you they're on your face. : )

[Nay]

10. Go to Genealogy.com and

click on their "community" tab, then go to their virtual cemetery. There are lots in there. Also, on Cyndislist.com, under their alphabetical list, is "cemeteries and funeral homes" with dozens of links to different cemetery/gravestone recording projects that just may help you.

[darkmaestro019]

14. oh, dear gods, you guys............

http://find.intelius.com I've taken away the actual link for privacy's sake, but he's listed there with his family members--haven't clicked anything yet because it has "age-31" listed and he, isn't. And never will be.


This is bloody awful to try and do. Thank you all for your help, though.

EDIT: you have to pay this site, but it isn't very much--but it finds no death record in the state where he died, but it finds one in the state where he was born. WTF? I don't want to pay for the wrong one, but it has the correct age at which he died. :argh:

EDIT: Seems to have been handled in Oregon where he was born, not where he died....well, this puts a snag in the whole purpose of this painful exercise, which was that I was going to be in FL to do this. I'm still chasing it. Just a tip for any lurkers and the few of you who seemed to be trying something similar, apparently the state in which the death occurred isn't always the place to seek the info. (hug hug hug for everyone here) Thank you all.