Burial Registers

The registers

The City of London Cemetery has a record of every burial that has taken place since its opening in 1856 and contains the following information.

Burial number
Date of burial
Name of person buried
Description, avocation, and parochial residence of person buried
Sex and age
District in which the death is registered
From what parish removed
Situation of grave (square and number)
Number of grant
Description of interment
Consecrated or unconsecrated ground
Ceremony performed by

These registers, currently comprising over 100 registers, are held in the Cemetery’s office and can be viewed during opening hours.

Genealogy research service

The City of London Cemetery has a record of every burial and cremation that has taken place since opening as a cemetery in 1856 and a crematorium in 1904. Currently there are over 100 registers, a Genealogy Research Service is offered for people interested in finding information about a family member.

Please be aware that the information recorded about a person is limited to:

The date of burial / cremation
The full name of the deceased*
The age of the deceased*
The address of the deceased, or place of death*

* As given when the death was registered. It is not uncommon for information supplied to the cemetery to be incorrect. Often the person making the funeral arrangements will mistakenly give the wrong age of the person, incorrectly spell a name, or not record a middle name etc. This will need to be taken into account when conducting the investigation.

How research is conducted

Information in the registers has always been recorded on the day the burial or cremation took place. Therefore the easiest way to find the information you want is by knowing the name of deceased and date of funeral. It is then possible to locate the register for that period.

It is difficult to conduct searches without accurate information and the possibility of finding the information you want is greatly reduced.

Our enquiry team can tell you about the records we hold and you can access the records in the following way:

Conducting your own research
You are welcome to come along to our site during normal opening times and conduct the search yourself.

Please contact us before visiting to ensure that the registers you are interested in are available.

Booking a researcher
Our staff can conduct research on your behalf for a fee. The current charges are:

Cremation registers £6 per name per year
Burial registers (later than 1955) £18 per name per year,
(earlier than 1955) £36 per name per year

The higher price for searches prior to 1955 is due to the registers not being indexed at that time. This makes the search more time consuming.

We will tell you if we are unable to provide the information you have requested or if it cannot be found within the time for which you have paid.

A written report will be sent to you which will contain the following details:

The date of burial
The full name of the deceased
The age of the deceased
The address of the deceased

Please see our terms and conditions.

We require payment for this service prior to undertaking any research. You can pay fees by :

Cheque made payable to "City of London"
Credit card (in person or by phone)

Genealogy research online
A project is now underway that will make all of this historical information available on the internet for users who are unable to visit us in person.

The first eight registers covering the dates 24 June 1856 to 2 June 1861 are currently available for viewing online and the remaining registers will be made available in the coming months.

You will need to enter a month and year for both the start and end date of your search so have your search criteria ready. You may also use the burial number if it is known. Please note that the records are arranged by date of burial, not date of death.

Click here to search the registers online or, alternatively, contact us and make arrangements to view the registers at our office or book a researcher.

Note that you will need the Flash player to view the Burial Registers. For a link to the Flash download site see the about this site page.

Download help