Family History site dedicated to Monumental Inscriptions and Burial Records

World Burial Index - Researching Memorial Inscriptions (MIs)

Welcome to the World Burial Index. This website gives you the opportunity to search through a unique survey of thousands of Memorial Inscriptions (MIs) taken from: graveyard headstones from memorials in churchyards and cemeteries; inscriptions recorded from within churches and cathedrals; details of church incumbents; war graves and war memorials. ...Also we are now including some Resident Lists; - City of London c1638 and San Francisco, California, USA 1866 (Surnames A-G completed) amongst others.

Family History Research

This site is an invaluable tool for your family history and historical research because gravestone and cremation plaques (MIs) are often the only place where you can find family relationships, occupations, dates of birth and dates of death to complete the gaps in your family genealogy.
Members of the World Burial Index can browse through the thousands of Interesting Inscriptions at leisure: These include unusual deaths; centenaries; notable occupations and verses which offer an insight into the sometimes humorous and occasionally morbid burial traditions of our ancestors.

Trace Your Ancestry

The World Burial Index website will continue to grow as new records are added continuously by our researchers and members both at home and abroad.
As the website records increase it will become a truly comprehensive index of Memorial Inscriptions throughout the world which will give future generations a wonderful insight into their ancestry.

Get Involved in the WBI Project

You can get involved in the World Burial Index project by photographing your local church and sending the photos to us. We will transcribe the memorial inscription and add it and the photo to the website. As a thank you we will give you FREE MEMBERSHIP to the site for a year.

We realise that your local church may not be the site containing your ancestors, but it just might be the one that another person is looking for... and visa versa! We are also seeking photographs of monuments, churches and war memorials in any country; maybe when you are on holiday you could snap some? If there are any would-be researchers in any country who would like to participate in this project, we would love to hear from you - just click here. We have already received churches and cemeteries from the Czech Republic, India, Argentina and Ireland to name but a few!

So if you have a few hours to spare, take a walk to your local church and record its history for the future generations who may be searching their roots back to the early 21st century! If every member recorded their own local churchyard, this information would be invaluable to others trying to find their family's roots. Together it can be done. Click here to find out more.

Join the World Burial Index

Membership for a whole year of unlimited searches costs just £10.00. Payments are processed by PayPal. Please click here to join.