Cemetery Records - Ontario

Most cemetery records are maintained at the local level (church, town, municipal or city hall).  

Online

• The Ontario Cemetery Finding Aid (OCFA) offers an online database of over 3 million interments. Although this database is a large and worthwhile tool, it is by no means complete.
• Find a Grave
• Canadian Headstones Project
• CanadaGenWeb’s Cemetery project
• Canadian Genealogy  Select your province of interest from this page
• The Ontario Genealogical Society has a cemetery index on their website.  Note: Many private and public cemeteries are moving their interment lists online. You must check each one on a case by case basis and call the appropriate cemetery directly if no interments are found online.  
• Ancestry Library Edition and FamilySearch.org also have a collection of cemetery/gravestone records, and there are several fee-based sites available on 7 the internet as well.  It is also useful to contact the genealogy society in your location of interest for their holdings. 

Microfilm 

Ontario Cemetery Recordings, a collection from the Ontario Genealogical Society, is partially available on film in at the Cloverdale Branch, with the remainder available through the Ontario Archives via interlibrary loan. The Ontario archives provides a list of counties and the corresponding microfilms here:  

• MS 451, Reels 1 – 19:  Cloverdale Branch 
• MS 451, Reels 20 – 136:  Ontario Archives 

Print

The Family History department has many books containing transcriptions of the text on headstones. To find out if we have cemetery record transcriptions for a certain place, search the library catalogue using the keywords “cemeteries – Ontario.” You can also browse our bookshelves in the section 929.5097 for Ontario Cemeteries or 929.507 for general information about searching cemeteries.  Some examples: 

Ontario Genealogical Society. 1991. Grenville County Cemeteries. Brockville, On: Leeds & Brockville Branch, OGS. Library call number – 929.709713 GRE 

Grenville County Historical Society. 1983. North Augusta Cemeteries, Augusta Twp. Grenville County.  Brockville: Leeds & Grenville Branch, OGS.  Library call number – 929.70913 GRE 1983 

Ronnow, Verna, & Ontario Genealogical Society. 1987. Inventory of Cemeteries in Ontario.  1987.  Toronto:  Ontario Genealogical Society Library call number – 929.70913 INV 1987