Verified vs. Location Not Verified — What You Can Drive On
CemeteryRegistry.us lists burial grounds so you can find the place. It does not list who is buried there. The status line on each record is the first fact to read. It tells you how much weight to put on the coordinate before you put the car in gear.
Verified and Location Not Verified are not cemetery grades. They are grades of the location record.
Verified
Verified means the location has been confirmed from maps, documents, and, when possible, an on-site GPS reading. Extra fields on the profile may be filled in. The coordinate is still a field start point—not a survey monument—and it is taken at the center of the tract, not the current gate.
Treat a Verified pin as: you can navigate to the ground with useful confidence. You still confirm access and current ownership before you cross a fence.
Location Not Verified
Location Not Verified means the cemetery is in the registry so you can find the name, county, and whatever else is already known. The pin may be incomplete or wrong. Do not plan a drive on that coordinate alone.
An unverified listing does not mean the cemetery is gone. It means this project has not finished the location check. Many unverified records are real grounds waiting on maps, a deed, or a visit.
What verification does not mean
- It does not mean every burial is documented.
- It does not mean the gate, parking, or road in use this year matches the pin.
- It does not mean public access. Access Type and your state’s access notes are separate facts.
- It does not mean the established date or the first documented burial has been settled. Those fields can still be empty on a Verified record.
Empty fields mean the date or detail is not yet supported—not that no one was buried there.
How a record moves from one status to the other
A new listing starts as Location Not Verified, including submissions from the Share form. We review it against maps, documents, and, when possible, an on-site reading. It is not published as Verified automatically.
If you have stood on a ground that is still unverified, or a Verified pin that no longer matches the tract, submit what you have: the name you used, the county, what you actually stood on, and photographs you took.
Before you travel
- Read the status line first.
- If it is Location Not Verified, keep working the record—maps, community name, Also Known As—before you drive.
- If it is Verified, navigate to the center point, then walk to the current entrance.
- Confirm access. Private land is handled differently in every state.
Go to the Find a Cemetery menu and pick a state to search the listings.
https://cemeteryregistry.us/find-a-cemetery
Share a cemetery:
https://cemeteryregistry.us/share-a-cemetery
State access notes (information only, not legal advice):
https://cemeteryregistry.us/home/cemetery-rights
Related: Finding a U.S. Cemetery When Find A Grave’s Pin Is Wrong
https://cemeteryregistry.us/home/cemetery-articles/when-find-a-grave-pin-is-wrong
— Doyle Glaze, CemeteryRegistry.us
