Grave location

[campcantreg]

We received a certified copy of my grandmother's death certificate from the Massachusetts Registry of Vital Statistics/Records. It showed the cemetery where she is buried.
She died in the mid 1950s. When we called the cemetery for her grave location, clerk could not locate anyone buried there with our grandmother's name and death of date. Is this even possible? Can a cemetery not have any record of a deceased family member even when it lists them on the death certificate?

[carubia]

Could your GM have been buried in the same grave as someone else, such as her husband or a parent? The same grave can often be used for multiple people, more for wooden coffins than metal ones.

[OrangeBlossom44]

Try contacting the funeral home that handled your grandmother's final arrangements. Even though it's been many years, quite a few funeral homes have been in business for decades and keep records of those they have served. After all, the funeral home is the entity that transfers the person to the cemetery for interment.

This is a long shot, but you could search Find A Grave to see if a memorial exists for her and the cemetery in which it is located. Records are just that records, and they are only as good as the people that keep them.

[campcantreg]

Good news! Grave found!

The evening before last we searched for the funeral home listed on the death certificate. They are now non-existant. Yesterday after spending close to 40 minutes on the phone with the cemetery, the manager called us back late afternoon to inform of grave location.

Seems when the cemetery records computerized back in the 1990s, the surname was entered as ”agostino” rather than “di agostino” resulting in searching under first initial “a” instead of “d”.

What helped to locate the grave was the exact date of death along with pulling information off of the family member’s paper record which had a notation referencing her correct surname, and the grave location. Several family members are buried in this cemetery.