Enter Cemetery Search Key: 

Help Icon Choose Cemetery

Ability to select just a single cemetery to search.

• Enter a "Search Key" (a few letters of the cemetery name or location that you want to find)

• Then press the "Search" button. Click on the one you want from the list that drops down.

• OR press the "Use All" button to search all 849+ cemeteries in our database.
Help Icon Start Searching here:

The Search function is very flexible.

• Not all search boxes need to be filled. For example, you can enter just an exact last name, and a first name or initial.

• You can vary the search by clicking the bulleted option buttons (Exact, Starts with, Contains, or Sounds like).

• You can enter a maiden name, and a first name or initial.

• For Born date, you can enter 1900. For Died date you can enter 1995, and find all people who lived to be approximately 95 years old.
Last Name
Help Icon Search Options
• Exact—the name must be an exact match. Smith does not find Smithwicks. David does not find David George.
• Starts with—type the first few letters. Sm finds Smith, Smithwicks, and Smythe. David finds David George.
• Contains—a slower search that looks for letters embedded in a name. ith finds Smith, Beckwith, Braithwaite, and Dithridge. geor finds David George and Dorothy Georgina.
• Sounds like—when you are unsure of the spelling, choose this option. Rachel finds Rachel, Rachael, Rackel, and Raquelle.
• The default (recommended) for Surname is Exact as it will give you the shortest list with the fewest irrelevant names. If you're not sure of the spelling, try Sounds like.
• Special Search Enter the PlotID (eg. COBUN4944;) or PersonID (eg. COBUN4944^1;) including the semicolon to quickly find that plot or person.




First Name(s)
Help Icon Search Options
• Exact—the name must be an exact match. Smith does not find Smithwicks. David does not find David George.
• Starts with—type the first few letters. Sm finds Smith, Smithwicks, and Smythe. David finds David George.
• Contains—a slower search that looks for letters embedded in a name. ith finds Smith, Beckwith, Braithwaite, and Dithridge. geor finds David George and Dorothy Georgina.
• Sounds like—when you are unsure of the spelling, choose this option. Rachel finds Rachel, Rachael, Rackel, and Raquelle.

• The default (recommended) for Given is Starts with as you are never sure how first-names are stored in our database; nicknames may be used, second names may be present or missing. To find an exact initial, use a single letter followd by a period. Often, Contains is a better choice as there are many names with a leading initial (the person was known by second name).




Maiden Name
Help Icon Search Options
• Exact—the name must be an exact match. Smith does not find Smithwicks. David does not find David George.
• Starts with—type the first few letters. Sm finds Smith, Smithwicks, and Smythe. David finds David George.
• Contains—a slower search that looks for letters embedded in a name. ith finds Smith, Beckwith, Braithwaite, and Dithridge. geor finds David George and Dorothy Georgina.
• Sounds like—when you are unsure of the spelling, choose this option. Rachel finds Rachel, Rachael, Rackel, and Raquelle.

• The default for Maiden is Starts with as it saves you typing a full name but if you find there are too many 'hits' then Exact will give you the shortest list with the fewest irrelevant names.

•  If you're not sure of the spelling, try Sounds like.




Born/Died Years
Help Icon Date Examples
•1895—finds all dates in 1895

•189  —finds all dates from 1890—1899

•19    —all dates from 1900 through 1999

•1       •2       —all who were born in the 1900s and died in the 2000s.

• However, these examples could provide thousands of 'hits' so you must restrict the search by adding at least an initial, for example 'S' for last name 'starts with'.
Blank: all years
Partial years: 18, 189, 1895 etc.
Sex




 Search Notes (ignoring all fields above): 
Help Icon Search within Memos:

The Memo Search function can be very useful since optional data about a person may not have had a separate field in the database but the information was still included in the notes (memos) by the compiler.

• This function is case-insensitive and ignores any of the other search keys you may have entered above, including the selected cemetery, and searches ALL notes for ALL people in ALL cemeteries.

• Type in any phrase you want to find. Here's a good example to try:
       "choked on a piece of meat".

• CemSearch will look for these words close together as a phrase, not individual words.

• Note that certain words (called 'StopWords') such as `a`, `the`, `of`, `in`, `is`, `it`, `what`, `when`, `where`, all punctuation and words shorter than 3 characters are ignored. For the example above, the actual search is for "choked piece meat" and so you don't have to have the phrase exact; it will find things that are close but not necessarily an exact match.

• For advanced users, the standard `+`, `-` and `~` prefixes can be used such as are available in most search engines such as Google, Amazon, etc.
Example 1: "+choked on a piece of meat" will find 3 people who choked, one on meat, the other 2 on something else.
Example 2: "+choked on a piece of -meat" will find 2 people who choked on something, but the one who choked on meat is omitted.

• If your searchKey is too short (example "wife of"), there will be too many hits and Cemsearch will ask you to narrow your search criteria; example: 'wife of sam'.

Our Volunteers

Over 100 volunteers plus several coordinators walked the cemeteries and searched the archives in Ontario, Canada to bring you this comprehensive database.  The task is on-going and hopefully others will join to carry the torch.  Will you volunteer to do a cemetery in your area?  We extend our heartfelt thanks here; we couldn't have done it without you!  Thank you.

Click here to see the list of our volunteers.