Frequently Asked Questions

There are several possible reasons for this:

1. We may not have the record of the person you are looking for yet. Our coverage page, found on our homepage, will be able to inform you of which crematoria or cemeteries we currently have on our website. We are constantly adding records from new areas, so if you register on the site (free of charge), and indicate at the end of the registration details that you wish to receive news emails, you will be informed when new areas are added.
2. The date of the burial or cremation may be outside the range you have specified. Try widening the date range or, try clearing both the "from year" and "to year" fields to display names from all dates.
3. If you are not sure about the exact spelling, try using "wild card" characters in the name, see ‘how to search’.
4. There may have been an index transcription error. While we take great care to maximise accuracy, very occasionally an error may occur when the register entry index information is transcribed, leading to the name not being found on searching. You can use our wildcards to see if there is a mistranscription of the name you are looking for. See our search tips for more details. If you think you have found an error of this type, please contact us via our contact page, and we will endeavour to correct this.
5. The original entry in the register may have been incorrect. If you know that the person you are looking for should be in our database, please let us know, and we can inform the authority supplying the records. Please contact us via the contact page if you have found an error.
6. If the records being searched are for burials of women in Scotland, then you may find the surname in the forenames field. The reason for this is that some old Scottish records record the maiden name, previous married names, previous name changed by deed poll, and current surname in different places, and they are not always consistent. For instance, it is common to find all previous surnames, but the current one, in the forename field. Our aim is to record, wherever possible, all surnames in the surname field and all forenames in the forename field. Unfortunately, due to ambiguities in the original records, this may not be completely possible. Trying to search known surnames in the first name box could be helpful in these cases.

If you have tried all the suggestions above, and you are still unsuccessful, please contact us through our contact form.

You can check our coverage page to see which burial and cremation authorities are currently publishing their records on Deceased Online. This page can be reached from the home page, ‘Coverage details’, located at the bottom of the home page.

We are working continuously with authorities across the UK to digitise their burial and cremation records so they can join Deceased Online and make available their records to our users.

Keep an eye out for any announcements we make on our News section for new records being added.

If you would like to be informed when new records are uploaded for searching, register on our website for free and tick the box to tell us that you wish to receive news emails, you will be informed whenever a set of records is added. You can change these preferences at any time. You can also follow our social media pages.

More detailed searching is available to registered users. You can register for free, there is no obligation to purchase any vouchers, or subscription. You will then be able to use the advanced search facility.

Advanced searches can be restricted as required to country, region, county, burial authority, cemetery or crematorium. See ‘pricing and charging’ below.

Clicking on a name in the search results list will display associated information available for this record, for example: register page scan; others in the same grave; photograph of the grave with inscription; and cemetery map pinpointing the grave position. Not every record will have all this information. Each item is available individually and the cost to view, print, and/or download will be clearly shown. Vouchers can be purchased on the website using a credit or debit card, these vouchers can then be used to purchase records. You will need to have an account with us to purchase vouchers.

Yes, we always welcome suggestions, however we liaise with local authorities, councils, and private cemeteries and crematoria across the UK to add their records, and this can take some time. 

Our database holds information about burial/cremation records and other records held by local authorities and private cemeteries and crematoria, including information as to burial rights. The vast majority of the data we hold therefore relates to deceased individuals.

However, some information may relate to living individuals, either directly or indirectly. For example:

• details of burial rights will include details of the individuals who hold those rights;
• burial register entries may include details of the individual who applied for the funeral, who may still be alive;
• cremation register entries may include details of the individual who applied for the cremation, who may still be alive;
• gravestone images and searchable inscription transcripts may contain the names of living persons; and
• information about living individuals may be inferred from information about deceased individuals. For example, the fact that a deceased individual lived at a given address and was married may amount to information about his or her surviving spouse.

All this information is already publicly available at cemetery and crematorium offices. However, to ensure that any risks to individual privacy are kept to a minimum, with the exception of gravestone images and inscriptions, we do not make any such information available until it is at least fifteen years old.

For further details of how we use any information relating to living individuals (including users of our site), please see our privacy policy.

There can be a few reasons for more than one person in a grave plot.

Grave plots in cemeteries can be bought, which is often known as a ‘purchased grave’. Graves which are ‘purchased’, are reserved for a small number of burials, such as a husband and wife, mother and child, or some members of the same family. This would have often been decided at the time of purchase of the grave space. Sometimes, family members paid later to be buried with their relatives. These graves were either sold with a ‘forever’ term, known as in perpetuity, or with a fixed term of several years.

Other interments in a grave are a useful way of finding additional family members, as purchased graves can hold several members of the same family. This can provide information not previously known about families and provide vital missing links to family trees.

If the grave is not purchased, due to the deceased not having the funds to purchase an exclusive burial plot, these are sometimes known as a ‘common’ grave, or historically a ‘paupers grave’. In these instances, the local authority would have to provide a respectful place for burial, this became common law in 1840. These grave plots could have space for up to twenty people; therefore, it is unlikely that interments in these types of graves would be related, however this is not always the case. The information about whether a grave is purchased is often available on the original documents, but if a grave contains many interments, and/or the surnames of the deceased are all different, then it is more likely to be a ‘common’ grave. Today, this is known as a ‘public health funeral’, which is paid for by the local authority of where the person died.

Additionally, fixed term burial rights, where a grave plot was purchased for a fixed number of years, may have been re-sold on expiry to unrelated persons, in which case the original remains should still be recorded as being in the grave. Occasionally, in earlier years of a cemetery, previous occupants of a grave could have been exhumed, and re-interred elsewhere, potentially in the same cemetery. If this is the case, the documents should reflect this. 

Occasionally a typing error may occur, when transcribing the records from the original registers. In addition, the original registers often have difficult to read handwriting, the pages can be faded and deteriorating and can be centuries old. Handwriting has also changed significantly over the years. We try our best to read what is on the written page and have years of experience deciphering old handwriting on register pages. 

There is also the possibility that the entry in the original register was incorrectly recorded at the time of writing, a spelling mistake or error in dating. If you feel there is an error of this manner, please contact the Bereavement Services department of the relevant council or cemetery/crematorium directly who will review the entry. They may need further supporting evidence to correct their records.

Also, from time to time an error may be made linking a transcribed record to the appropriate register page scan, resulting in the wrong original page being displayed.

If you think you have found an error, please contact us with the details through our contact form, we will correct any data processing errors or, where necessary, inform the contributing authority of a suspected error in their original register. We want to fix errors, therefore making sure we are aware is of importance to us.

Very occasionally an error may occur during the linking of an index record to the scan of the register page showing the original entry, resulting in the wrong register page, or no page at all, being displayed. Please contact us through our contact form with the details of the problem so we can correct it.

The records we add onto Deceased Online are the ones we are provided with from local authorities and private cemeteries and crematoria.  Sometimes, the only records we receive for transcription are burial records for a cemetery, and there will be no photographs of headstones or maps available. If we do have the data, we link this to the records we have. If you have any large collections of photographs of graves, you would like us to add these, please get in touch via our contact form, and we can discuss the details.

Some of the records we receive are very detailed, with occupation, address, and cause of death listed along with the name and date of burial or cremation. Other records we receive do not have as much information and relies simply on what the cemetery or crematoria decided to record at the time. 

Some cemeteries only have a burial index available, which is a record of who is buried where in their cemetery, and on what date, and links to another burial register, which is no longer available. No other information is usually on these indexes. We scan, digitise and upload what we receive from the authority, cemetery or crematorium.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires that information from registers about living people should not be published by Deceased Online.

Living, or potentially living people include applicants for funerals, grave owners, doctors, officiants etc. Additionally, in order to comply with Article 8 of the European Human Rights Act, concerning the right to respect for private and family life, we usually withhold the address and place of death of the deceased for the last 15 years.

Where this information is held in computer records, this is easy to achieve; however, where only register scans are available we have to mask the relevant areas of the images. Where records contain information about potentially living people, then in line with other public database websites, we withhold personal information from those records made during the previous 15 years in England and Wales, and 75 years in Scotland.

SBC is short for "Stillborn Child"

AKA is an abbreviation of "Also Known As".

NEE indicates the surname before marriage.

Names can often be abbreviated, especially in older, handwritten records, for example Alexr for Alexander and Margt for Margaret. We transcribe the books as we see them, as the name might not be what we think it is, so if we see Alexr, we do not assume it is Alexander. If you would like us to look at any purchased records for you, to try and decipher the abbreviation, do not hesitate to get in touch, via the contact form. We can also try and interpret any handwriting you are finding tricky to read.

Some common name abbreviations:

                                                                               Jno– John

                                                                               Alex – Alexander, Alexandrina

                                                                               Benj – Benjamin

                                                                               Chas – Charles

                                                                               Eliz - Elizabeth

                                                                               Fredk – Frederick

                                                                               Geo – George, Georgina, Georgiana              

                                                                               Hy - Henry

                                                                               Jas – James

                                                                               Jos – Joseph

                                                                               Marg – Margaret

                                                                               Mathw – Matthew

                                                                               Richd – Richard

                                                                               Robt – Robert

                                                                               Saml – Samuel

                                                                               Thos – Thomas

The lack of a headstone on a grave is quite common, not every grave has a headstone, and there can be several reasons for this.

• The grave may be a common grave, where there are many interments. See ‘Why are there other deceased people in a grave of a person I am interested in?’ located above. These graves generally do not have a headstone or memorial.
• Headstones can become damaged and vulnerable over time, and the headstone may have been removed for safety reasons by the local authority.
• The family may not have been able to afford a headstone, or there may have been no one to arrange a headstone. Memorials are usually arranged by the next of kin. If the person you are researching died intestate and with no heirs, but had pre-purchased a grave, then the local authority would have arranged the burial in the purchased grave, however, there would not always be a headstone pre-purchased.

There is a legal process for placing a headstone on a grave, if you have found a grave you wish to place a headstone or memorial, please contact the cemetery or crematorium directly.

Double check your log in details, you should be able to log in with the details you registered with.

If you have forgotten your password, click on "Forgotten your password?" under the log in fields, and we will send you a link to allow you to choose a new one.

If you are still having difficulties, please contact us via our contact form.

If you have forgotten your password, click on "Forgotten your password?" under the log in fields, and we will send you a link, to the email address you registered with, to allow you to choose a new one.

We will send you relevant emails to confirm account-related events, such as setting up of a new account, purchase of vouchers, impending expiry of vouchers, and changes to our Terms & Conditions.

If you have indicated during registration that you wish to receive news/marketing emails, by ticking the relevant tick-box, then we will inform you of recent or imminent additions of new records, special offers, etc. If you no longer wish to receive marketing emails, log into your account and change your preferences by unticking the emails opt-in box to let us know. Sometimes our system takes a little while to update, so please allow two weeks. If you do opt out of marketing emails, you won't be notified when new data is made available on the website.

If you choose to delete your account, you will not be able to use the same log in credentials again. You will have to use a new email address and password and create a brand new account. Any records you have viewed, and vouchers you have purchased will not be available. 

The Collections system is a new feature to enable you to create named groups of pages, of which they will be ready for you to look at when you need to.

These collections can include cremation and burial register scans, grave search results, grave details, grave location and section maps, memorial searches and detail pages, deceased search results, deceased detail records, location search results, headstone collection listings.

Each of these page types you have searched for will have an "Add to Collection" button.

On your Account page there is a listing page that shows all the Collections you have created, containing the items you have collected. You can revisit an item by clicking it in the list.

You can name each collection to help you keep track of what it contains, and you can add your own description to each record.

We strongly recommend downloading your collection you have twelve months to download your records, as after this time the records will no longer be available on your account, and you will have to download them again.

Items can be removed from a Collection, and whole Collections can also be deleted, allowing you to make sure your lists remain manageable.

You may search our website free of charge; you do not need to have a registered account. The simple search panel on our front page allows you to search all records by name and year of burial or cremation. More detail on the burial and cremation records is available on our purchasable records, of which you will need to register an account.

If you wish to register an account with us, you will have access to our advanced search, which will enable you to make more detailed searches for the records you are looking for. Once logged in, you have the option of purchasing records, either with pay as you view vouchers, or signing up for a monthly or annual subscription.

UK burial records are public documents, but cremation records are not. Certain information from cremation records, however, can be published, if publishing it adheres to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and does not refer to living people, such as funeral applicants, signatory doctors etc.

Local authorities, where most records are kept, are allowed to make a charge for searches, as this can often be time consuming. The method and cost of accessing such records where they are still in handwritten large book format varies greatly across burial and cremation authorities. While some authorities do not charge for this service, others can charge up to £80 per name request, regardless of whether the information required is found.

Deceased Online is not re-selling access to an existing database of censuses and the Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths. We are providing the means for the local authorities of the UK, and private cemeteries and crematoria, which involves digitising and transcribing tens of millions of register entries. We provide this service, enabling a central searchable collection.

Often they are based on British Ordnance Survey (OS) maps, in which case the OS require us to pay them royalties whenever a user accesses the maps, and these royalties make up a large part of the access fee we charge to users. In other cases the maps are from a different (non-royalty) source, in which case they are cheaper to access.

Yes, you can save records to your computer. We strongly recommend you save records you wish to keep.

Twelve months after initial purchase, access to the records you have purchased will expire, therefore you are able to save scans of registers, maps and photographs once purchased, for you to keep.

To do this, right click on the image of your purchased scans and ‘save image as’ onto your own computer or device. This ensures you have access to your records without an expiry date.

If you do not download the record you wish to keep, access will expire twelve months after initial access, and you will need to repurchase the record.

Please note, the expiry date will be clearly displayed on the entry you have purchased.

When you purchase a record, either with a pay per view voucher, or via the monthly/annual subscription, you may view, print and/or download it onto your computer as many times as you wish for a period of 12 months. Due to the records being owned by local authorities or private cemetery companies, we cannot guarantee the records will remain on the website, as the record owners may choose to remove their records from Deceased Online.

Downloading your records ensures you maintain access, for your own personal use.

We use the third party, secure payment supplier Stripe, of which you can purchase the vouchers securely using a debit or credit card. We do not store any of your payment information, and your details are secure. You can then use the voucher to pay for the record you wish to view.

A voucher on Deceased Online is a system which enables you to purchase securely via our third party payment provider Stripe.

If you have a voucher worth £50, this could be viewed as a basket of records worth £50, and you are taking items out worth up to that £50, each time you need a record from the basket.

Vouchers have a 12-month lifespan, any unused money on a voucher will expire after this date.

If you start your genealogy journey with us, and find you are purchasing several vouchers, you may be better off with our monthly or annual subscription – see ‘what is the monthly subscription’.

If you need a record for the purchases you have made, or site search history, you can download this information using the ‘Download Personal Data’ button on your account dashboard.

As we pay the local authorities and private cemeteries and crematoria for providing their data for us to share on Deceased Online, we need to be able to audit our finances. By allowing vouchers to expire, this enables us to keep track of our accounts.

We now offer an annual subscription which gives you 250 views of burial or cremation records for £99, billed annually. This works out at 40p per record, cheaper than our current pay as you view system, where it is on average £2.50 to purchase a record. This is a recurring payment, and you will be billed annually, unless you choose to cancel. If you cancel two weeks after purchase, you will not be entilied to a refund, however you will have one year to use all of your views.

You will not be able to view maps or photographs of headstones with the 250 views; these will be available with the purchase of a pay as you go voucher.

We now offer a monthly subscription which gives you 15 views of burial or cremation records for £9.99 a month. This works out at 67p per record, cheaper than our current pay as you view system, where it is on average £2.50 to purchase a record. This is a recurring payment, and any unused views will roll over, up to 12 months’ worth, therefore the most you will be able to accrue is 180. The first month’s views will expire in month 12, and you'll be given 15 fresh views, this is rolling on your account.

You will not be able to view maps or photographs of headstones with the 15 views; these will be available with the purchase of a pay as you go voucher.

We must pay VAT on photographs of headstones, as headstones are subject to VAT, so these cost us a little more to have on the website. 

Where a map is created by the British Ordinance Survey, we must pay them royalties whenever a user accesses the maps, and these royalties make up a large part of the access fee we charge to users. In other cases, maps from a different source, such as a local authority, are cheaper to access, and we charge accordingly.

You can buy separate pay per view vouchers for these items.

If you wish to purchase more records, and you have run out of your 15 views, you can pay £9.99 for a further 15 views, and there is no limit to the amount you can buy. This is significantly cheaper than the pay per view vouchers.

With the annual subscription, you can purchase a top up for a further £5.99 for 15 views, which is equivalent to the cost per view of the annual subscription.

The initial free search is available without a credit or debit card, however to see the details of the records, you will need to purchase these with a debit or credit card.

Deceased Online uses a third-party payment provider, Stripe.

The Stripe payment system uses proven techniques to ensure the security and integrity of sensitive data. Their payment pages are encrypted using SSL (Secure sockets layer) and are certified by Verisign, a public Certificate Authority, ensuring that both the consumer and the merchant can have confidence that nobody can impersonate Stripe to obtain confidential information.

Data storage on Stripe systems and the communication between Stripe and the worldwide banking networks, is regularly audited and certified to the highest standards - Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI/DSS) - to ensure a secure transaction environment.

Stripe accepts many major credit and debit cards, including Mastercard and Visa.

Your payment will come out of your account as soon as the payment has been authorised by your bank or credit card company.

Why was my credit/debit card payment not processed/declined?

Your credit card company/bank may have declined authorisation to debit your card due to one of the following reasons:

• there may be a credit limit on your account, or insufficient funds
• the incorrect card type, number, expiry date or verification code was entered when placing the order
• there were dashes or spaces in the account number that could not be recognised
• your card may be recently issued and has not yet been activated
• your name or address details do not match those registered for the card

Please check your card details, and if after trying again you still encounter difficulties, please contact your bank/building society/credit card company.

Your address registered with Deceased Online must be the registered address that your credit card company holds. Please ensure that your address is correct at the time of placing your order, as the order may not complete.

If you have followed the above steps, and are still unsuccessful, please get in touch via our contact form, and we will investigate the issue.

If your order was not authorised online, please confirm you have correctly entered your credit card details and place your order again. If you still have difficulties please contact your credit card company to make them aware of your order and then try again.

Your address registered with Deceased Online must be the registered address that your credit card company holds. Please ensure that your address is correct at the time of placing your order.

If you need a record for the purchases you have made, or site search history, you can download this information using the ‘Download Personal Data’ button on your account dashboard.

We will need to make an assessment of the records such as the number of register entries you have for burials and/or cremations, the number and condition of your bound registers, whether some or all of the records are in computerised form, the number of cemeteries, the number of graves, any photographs you have of graves, and the state of your maps. Each one of our clients is unique, therefore a visit from one of our team is normally required. If you contact us through our contact form, we will arrange to visit to examine your records and discuss these matters further.

Before records can be uploaded onto our website, registers and photographs of graves will need to be scanned and transcribed, cemetery maps will need to be scanned and converted to line drawings, and grave spaces then linked to the correct records, matching up with the provided relevant maps.