How long do funeral homes keep records?

Answer 1

I don't know for sure how long they keep the records but I can tell you that my husbands mother passed away when he was very young and he had no information other than the area where she was buried. We contacted all the funeral homes in the area and found the one she was at ... who then told us what cemetery she was buried at. After calling the cemetery we found the exact location of his mothers grave ... all almost 50 years later.

It has been my experience (although not professional) that Funeral Homes/Cemeteries/Undertakers may be in practice for hundreds of years and still maintain the same name even through it has outside the family over and over again throughout the years (For ex. Turner & Sons in 1830 is still Turner & Sons in 1990). Once, a Funeral Home/Cemetery/Undertaker sells out and a new owner comes in, there is usually a set of log books of entries from the previous owner. The new owner doesn't necessary want to be responsible for this data, so they donate the log books to the local historical society. Then, at some point in time, the Genealogical Society of Utah (Latter-day Saints, Mormons) might come in and microfilm (or digitally scan) the pages from these log books. The microfilm then finds a home at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. When I was looking for ancestors who died before 1900 often-times I noticed this was the practice.

Visit www.familysearch.org (the LDS website) or internet search/call your local historical society and see if they can assist you. Historical societies often have people who will research what you are looking for, copy the page you want, and mail it to you. Their time usually costs $10.00 an hour if you know the specific date, full name, etc., but a general search can run as much as $35.00 an hour. If you visit the historical society yourself, you might need to have an appointment and public visiting hours are sometimes restricted to a certain number of people so plan ahead.

If you find in looking at the Family History Library catalog at www.familysearch.org that the log book you're interested in has been microfilmed, you can request (for a small fee) that a copy be sent to a local Family History Center where you can put it on a reader and search the microfilm there. (In other words, they don't mail it to your house). Good luck and I hope this response helps!

All of the funeral homes I know of never destroy records. So they keep them indefinately.