VA Updates Gravesite Locator

The burial locations of more than 5 million veterans for whom the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has provided grave markers are now posted on the Internet, along with the information inscribed on the markers. Online since April 2004, the nationwide gravesite locator at http://gravelocator.cem.va.gov helps veterans’ families, former comrades-in-arms and others find the graves of veterans. VA recently increased its database by 1.9 million records of veterans buried primarily in private cemeteries. The gravesite locator previously carried only records on 3 million veterans buried in VA national cemeteries since the Civil War, and in state veterans cemeteries and Arlington National Cemetery since 1999. The new records date from January 1997, the earliest time for which electronic records exist. The information comes from applications made for those veterans’ headstones or markers. The VA continues to add about 1,000 new records to the database each day.