Search for relatives burial site?

Question

with the help of 'yahoo answers' still have not found where relative is buried in Effort Pennsylvania... so I was wondering if this is because he may have been cremated and therefore a different search field is required....if I contact the County do you pay for death records

Answer 1

Did you try findagrave?  Or random acts of genealogical kindness (raogk)?

Answer 2

When you can't find a death record or a grave, the possibilities are that he could be buried before the county kept records; he could be buried in a cemetery that no one ever transcribed; he might be buried but have no headstone for a volunteer to read (the cemeteries don't give lists of who's buried there, volunteers have to read the headstones and type it all up); he could be buried in another county; or he might not have a grave.

You raise the issue of getting the death certificate. That depends on where/when he died. Not everyone has a death certificate, especially before 1930, and not all death certificates are where you'd expect to find them. Whether someone has a death certificate in a given county depends on whether he actually died there. Imagine that someone from Racine, Wisconsin is in a bad accident in Chicago and died in Cook County, IL. There won't be a death certificate in Wisconsin, even if he's buried there. Illinois holds the death certificate. But the Health Dept would have to issue a permit to bury him in a Racine cemetery based on the Illinois death certificate. So if you can't figure out where he's buried, contact the Health Department and ask for the unit that issues burial permits. They should be able to tell you where everyone's buried in their county for the last 100 years or so. The Health Dept also doesn't usually charge for the question and they can tell you when/where he died.

Answer 3

Whether death records are available at all in a particular county and whether you have to pay for them will vary from county to county.

Effort is in Monroe County. Pennsylvania death certificates (since 1906) are available for a fee from the state.  They use a 3rd party vendor (Vitalchek) to process the requests and payments. - http://vitalchek.com/agency_locator.aspx...

There's no guarantee that the death certificate will list a place of burial.

You might also try www.findagrave.com.