Illinois Cemeteries

Cemetery records, such as tombstone and sexton’s records, often give birth and death dates, age at death, name of spouse and children, and may give a maiden name or a birthplace.

Tombstones may have symbols or insignias indicating military service and social or religious affiliations. Symbols and abbreviations may lead you to other records.

Locating Cemeteries
The Illinois Cemetery Project of the Illinois State Genealogical Society has identified hundreds of cemeteries and their exact locations in the state. This information is on their Internet site and hosted by Rootsweb. Cemetery Location Project. This is a county-by-county listing of cemetery names, their locations, and indicates if the tombstones have been abstracted. The information has also been published regularly since 1972 in the Illinois State Genealogical Society Quarterly cited in Illinois Periodicals. Headstone abstracts are not part of this project.

For more information on cemetery records, see United States Cemeteries.

Lookup Volunteers

 * Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness has located lookup volunteers who are willing to photograph tombstones for many Illinois counties.

Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Collection

 * The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) have tombstone inscriptions from Illinois cemeteries. This collection is located at the DAR Library in Washington, D.C., which also includes transcripts of Bible records, cemetery records, church records, family records, marriages, deaths, obituaries, and wills.


 * The Family History Library (FHL) has a Genealogical collection of Illinois cemetery records microfilmed from the original records in the D.A.R. library in Washington D.C. The FHL collection includes 35 microfilm beginning with . The volumes are generally arranged by county and many have individual indexes.

Family History Library Collection

 * 1864 - 1989 - at FamilySearch — index and images


 * Beckstead, Gayle, and Mary Lou Kozub. Searching in Illinois: A Reference Guide to Public and Private Records. Costa Mesa, California: ISC Publications, 1984. A list of the names and addresses of cemeteries at the FHL. This is a good source for locating federal, state, county, and city or town records and resources. It also gives lists of cemeteries, libraries, and newspapers and shows addresses of genealogical and historical societies. This guide has a special emphasis for adoptees. Other Libraries (WorldCat)


 * Burial permits, 1882-1887 (Scott County Genealogical Society, Scott County, Iowa.) Some places of burial include Illinois.


 * Cemetery Records of Illinois 13 Volumes. Salt Lake City, Utah: Genealogical Society, 1960–66. An important collection of unindexed tombstone abstract records.


 * St. Louis Genealogical Society of St. Louis, Missouri, Cemetery relocations by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas (St. Louis, Missouri : St. Louis Genealogical Society, 1977.) Other Libraries (WorldCat);


 * Cox, Carroll Cox (compiler), Cemetery Records [Illinois and Indiana] (Salt Lake City, Utah, 1983).


 * Daughters of the American Revolution, Cemetery Records (Salt Lake City, Utah, 1972).


 * Daughters of the American Revolution (Louisiana) Genealogical Research Committee, Bible, cemetery and church records, 1930-1931 (Salt Lake City, Utah, 1971). Includes index.


 * Daughters of the American Revolution, Aurora Chapter (Illinois), Cemeteries [northeastern Illinois] (Illinois : s.n., 19--).


 * Daughters of the American Revolution (Illinois), Genealogical records, family genealogies, miscellaneous data.


 * Gill, James V., Illiana research report (Danville, Illinois:Illiana Genealogical Pub. Co., 1966-196?.) Other Libraries (WorldCat)


 * Hageness, MariLee Beatty, Confederate burials, Camp Douglas, Chicago, Illinois, Oak Cemetery (Anniston, Alabama: MLH Research, 1993.) Other Libraries (WorldCat);


 * Loveless, Tony Alfonzo (Main Author), R.L. Hastings and Mary Alyce Kern, editors, The journal of Tony Loveless (West Frankfort, Illinois: Frankfort Area Genealogy Society, 1977). Other Libraries (WorldCat); A listing of veterans tombstone inscriptions in various southern Illinois cemeteries made by Tony Alfonzo Loveless, 1875-1948.


 * Lind, Helen Sutt, Those left behind : cemeteries in the Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge, Williamson County, Illinois (Johnston City, Illinois : H.S. Lind, 1995.) Other Libraries (WorldCat);


 * Lundberg Gertrude W., [Various] cemetery records and obituaries of Illinois, New York, Maine, Michigan and Wisconsin (Salt Lake City, Utah, 1969).


 * Record of burial places of soldiers, sailors, marines and Army nurses of all wars of the United States buried in ... Illinois (Salt Lake City, Utah;: Filmed by the Utah State Archives and Records Service, 1981).


 * Soldiers burial places in state of Illinois for wars, 1774-1898 (Salt Lake City, Utah, 1975.) Alphabetical list.


 * Walker, Harriet J., Soldiers of the American Revolution buried in Illinois : from the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, April, 1912- January, 1917 inclusive and April, 1926-January 1927 (Salt Lake City, Utah, 1973.)


 * The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Family History Library (Salt Lake City, Utah.) Index to United States Cemeteries. Salt Lake City, Utah: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1988. A county-by-county list of cemeteries. Another FHL filming is on . Illinois is on  or.


 * To find additional cemetery sources in the FamilySearch Catalog, use the Place-Names Search function. For example:


 * 1. Access the FamilySearch Catalog
 * 2. Type the word "Illinois" in the place-names search; then click, Search.
 * 3. Locate the topic, Cemetery
 * 4. OR, type in a county in Illinois in the place-names search; then click, Search
 * 5. Locate the topic, Cemetery.
 * 6. To explore each cemetery title, click on the highlighted blue title.

ILLINOIS, CEMETERIES ILLINOIS, [Name of County]- CEMETERIES ILLINOIS, [Name of County], [Name of Town]- CEMETERIES

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

For records on related record types, see Illinois Funeral Homes', Illinois Obituaries, and Illinois Vital Records'.

Web Sites
Interment.net

The Illinois GenWeb Project

Illinois Genealogy and History

Illinois Gravestone.org

Graveyards.com