Cemetery Records - Indigenous & Métis

Most municipal or public cemetery records are maintained at the local level (church, town, municipal or city hall). If the resources below do not meet your research needs, please consult with a staff member in our Family History Department and/or see our corresponding research guide for your province of research.

Information about cemeteries “on reserves” can be sensitive, and much of it is not available online. Indigenous People often prefer to manage this information themselves. If you know where your ancestor died, or where they are buried (often noted on the death registration), you can start by contacting the local Band office or local Band Chief and Council (see the Locations section) to learn what records they have and what protocols they expect you to follow.

Online

Note: Many online resources for cemeteries are crowdsourced, and welcome volunteers to input information from their local areas. Although it is great to volunteer to add information to sites such as these below, not every Indigenous community wants the information posted. If you are interested in volunteering to post cemetery information to public sites, be certain to contact the responsible Band office first to confirm their permission to do so.

• CanadaGenWeb’s Cemetery project
• Find a Grave
• Canadian Headstones Project
• Canadian Genealogy  Select your province of interest from this page 

Print

The Family History Department has a small collection of books containing transcriptions from cemetery markers in different provinces, especially for British Columbia.  Some examples:

Abbotsford Genealogical Society. 2004.  Mt. Lehman Cemeteries Memorials.  Abbotsford, BC. William T. Overy Library call number – 929.   

Trace, Mary Kearns.  Monumental Inscriptions of Union Cemetery, Calgary, Alberta. Library call number -- 929.5097123 MON 1986