How to find a relative's grave when the records are lost
From cemetery archives to on-site searching — what works in practice
Sometimes people do not know where their relative is buried — because of emigration, broken family ties or simply because no one wrote it down. This happens especially often with the generations who lived in the 1940s–1960s: documents were incomplete and there was no tradition of recording the place of burial.
A grave can be found — but you need to know where to turn and in what order.
Step 1. Gather everything you know
Write down everything, even the vague details: the approximate year of death, the city, the likely cemetery, the surname and first name, the date of birth. If you have a death certificate, it lists the cemetery and the date of burial. That is already enough to search an archive.
Step 2. The cemetery archive
Every official cemetery keeps a register of burials. It contains the surname, the date of burial and the plot number. Call or write to the cemetery administration — give the surname, first name and approximate year. They usually reply within a day.
The catch: registers from before the 1990s are often kept on paper and only partly digitised. Archivists search by hand, which takes time. At large cemeteries in Kyiv the wait can be 3–7 days.
Contacts for Baikove Cemetery: the administration is at 16 Baikova St., Kyiv. Berkovetske — 2 Berkovetska St. Lychakiv Cemetery in Lviv — 33 Mechnykova St.
Step 3. The civil registry office (DRACS)
If you know the city where your relative died, contact the local civil registry office. Records from the registry books are kept there. You can request an extract from the death record — it will also list the cemetery.
For this you need a document confirming your relationship (a birth or marriage certificate). If you are a grandchild, you need a chain of documents. From abroad, a registry request can be filed through a consulate or by a notarised request sent by post.
Step 4. Church records and archives
Before 1917, records of civil status were kept by churches. The registry books are held in the regional state archives — the State Archive of Kyiv, Lviv, Vinnytsia and other regions.
If your loved one died before 1960 and you know their parish or district, there is a chance of finding the record. An online search is available through the FamilySearch database (familysearch.org) — a free service that has digitised part of the Ukrainian registry books.
Step 5. On-site searching
If the documentary route has reached a dead end, what remains is a physical search through the sections. At a small cemetery (up to 5,000 graves) this takes a few hours. At a large one (Berkovetske has more than 500,000 burials) it is impossible without a hint about the section.
We offer a grave search service. We go to the cemetery with the available data, methodically check the sections, photograph every grave we find with a similar surname and send them to you for confirmation. The cost starts from 500 UAH, and the turnaround is 1–3 working days depending on the size of the cemetery.
Online resources for searching
- FamilySearch.org — a free database of digitised registry books, including Ukrainian ones up to 1944.
- Nekropol.org.ua — a database of burials with photographs, compiled by volunteers
- The "Memorial" OBD database — a database of those who died in World War II, which records places of burial
- The archive portal archportal.gov.ua — a search across the holdings of the state archives
What to do once you have found it
Record the GPS coordinates — they are more precise than any description. Take a few photos with landmarks: the path, neighbouring monuments, the entrance to the section. That way you will be able to find it easily next time.
If you are passing the coordinates to relatives abroad, send a Google Maps link: open the point on the map and tap "Share". The person will open it and immediately see where it is.