If there is a veteran anywhere in your family tree, bookmark the VA’s free Nationwide Gravesite Locator. It searches burial records for veterans and their family members in VA national cemeteries, state veterans cemeteries, other military and Department of the Interior cemeteries, and even private cemeteries where the grave carries a government-furnished marker.
Highlights from the cemetery list
Scrolling the Cemetery drop-down shows how far the records reach.
- Beyond the mainland: Honolulu’s National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (“Punchbowl”), Guam Veterans Cemetery, and the Saipan Veterans Cemetery in the Northern Mariana Islands, about 3,700 miles from Punchbowl.
- Tribal veterans cemeteries: the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians cemetery in Maine, the first east of the Mississippi, and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s All Nations Veterans Cemetery in North Dakota, dedicated in 2019.
- Prisoners of war: Andersonville, where nearly 13,000 Union prisoners were buried, and Fort Gordon’s cemetery for 21 German and 1 Italian World War II POWs.
- Confederate soldiers: men who died in Union prison camps rest at Confederate Mound in Chicago, Point Lookout in Maryland, and Camp Chase and Johnson’s Island in Ohio.
- Old and new: Civil War soldiers’ lots such as Mound City, Kansas, old soldiers’ home cemeteries, and newer national cemeteries like Ohio Western Reserve (2000) and Acadia in Maine (2020).
Try it yourself
Visit the Nationwide Gravesite Locator; only a last name is required. Search all cemeteries at once, or pick one to browse. Service members buried overseas are listed by the American Battle Monuments Commission instead.
Sources
- VA Nationwide Gravesite Locator
- VA: VA Adds Nearly 2 Million Records (2005)
- VA NCA: CNMI Veterans Cemetery grant
- VA News: NCA honors Native American culture
- The County: Houlton Band of Maliseets veterans monument
- NPS: Andersonville National Cemetery
- S. Army: Fort Gordon POW cemetery
- VA NCA: Confederate Stockade Cemetery
- VA NCA: Mound City Soldiers’ Lot
- VA: Acadia National Cemetery dedication
Submitted by Robin McCarthy (with assistance from Claude.ai)
