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Finding the grave is the hard part

The headstone claim itself takes an afternoon. Locating the grave, confirming it is the right person and establishing whether it is already marked can take months. Here is the order that works.

The order that works

1. Nationwide Gravesite Locator — free

The VA's own search. It covers national cemeteries, state and tribal veterans cemeteries, military post cemeteries, and private cemeteries where the VA provided a marker.

Know its limit before you conclude anything from a blank result: for private cemeteries the coverage generally runs from 1996 onward. An ancestor buried in a family plot under a stone the family bought will not be in it. A blank result is not evidence that the grave does not exist.

2. Find a Grave and BillionGraves — free

Volunteer-photographed headstones, tens of millions of memorials between them, indexed by name and cemetery. These are where you are most likely to find an ancestor's actual stone.

The feature worth knowing: both have photo request systems. If you find a cemetery but no photograph, you can ask a local volunteer to go and photograph the grave. For an ancestor headstone claim, that photograph is what tells you whether the grave is marked — the single question the whole claim turns on.

3. Headstone application records — subscription, or free at FamilySearch

Between roughly 1925 and 1963 the Quartermaster General processed headstone applications and the National Archives microfilmed them. They cover veterans back to the Revolutionary War.

These are the strongest single source for this problem, because the application names the cemetery. Ancestry holds a large indexed collection, and FamilySearch holds hundreds of thousands of the same images free of charge. Around one in ten forms has a second image on the back, so open both.

4. Pension files — National Archives

Underrated and often decisive. A Civil War pension file can run to dozens of pages of sworn statements about service, marriage, children and residence. It frequently pins down the town where the veteran died, which narrows the cemetery search from a state to a few square miles.

It also happens to be exactly the documentation the VA accepts as proof of service for a pre-World War I claim, so one record does two jobs.

5. Veterans Legacy Memorial — free

The VA's digital memorial platform, covering more than 10 million veterans and service members interred in national, state, tribal and territory cemeteries, Department of Defense and American Battle Monuments Commission cemeteries, National Park Service cemeteries, and private cemeteries where the VA provided a marker since 1996.

What to do when the trail goes cold

• Write to the county historical society. Small-town societies hold burial ledgers that were never digitised and never will be.
• Ask the cemetery directly. Many older cemeteries have a paper plot book. A grave with no stone can still have a numbered plot recorded against a name — and that record is what makes a grave "marked" for a pre-World War I veteran even with no stone present.
• Check the newspaper. An obituary usually names the cemetery.
• Look for the family plot, not the person. Nineteenth-century burials cluster. Find the parents and the sibling graves and the unmarked space between them is often your answer.

Coverage details reflect VA and National Cemetery Administration publications current for 2026. Stone & Marker is independent and receives nothing from the services named here; the VA tools are free, and FamilySearch is free to use.