Where to start

Material held in the Library of Birmingham may help you to find the final resting place of a person in present-day Birmingham. There is no central index to burial records, so you may need to be prepared for a lengthy search of several sources, some of which may be held elsewhere.

Identifying possible locations of a burial is the first step. Burial locations include:

• Church burial grounds
• Municipal and private cemeteries
• Burial grounds for specific faiths
• Crematoria (from 20th century)

Maps can help you to locate the nearest burial ground to where a person lived, but people were not always buried at the one nearest to their home. They may have been buried at the institution where they died, or in a family grave in the place where the family originated.

Locating a death certificate will provide the address of the deceased person. You can then use this to locate local churches and burial grounds.