How to Find a Veteran's Grave: The VA Gravesite Locator and Other Tools

Finding a veteran's grave is often easier than finding anyone else's, because the government keeps burial records for veterans in national cemeteries and for many who have a government headstone elsewhere. Here are the tools, in the order most people try them.

1. The VA Nationwide Gravesite Locator

The Nationwide Gravesite Locator from Veterans Affairs searches burial records for:

• VA national cemeteries,
• state veterans cemeteries,
• various other military and Department of the Interior cemeteries, and
• veterans buried in private cemeteries whose grave is marked with a government headstone or marker.

Enter the name, and narrow it with the cemetery if you know it. Results show the cemetery and the grave location (section and site), with a link to directions and, for national and state veterans cemeteries, a cemetery map. The records are updated every day.

2. Arlington National Cemetery

Arlington is run by the Army and keeps its own records. Use the ANC Explorer search on the cemetery's website or the ANC Explorer app, which also gives walking directions to the grave.

3. Overseas military cemeteries

Service members buried or memorialized in American military cemeteries abroad are listed by the American Battle Monuments Commission, which has a searchable database on its website.

4. Find a Grave and family records

If the veteran is in a private or church cemetery without a government marker, the official locators may not have them. Find a Grave, obituaries and funeral home records are the next places to look. Our guide to finding out where someone is buried walks through them.

Finding the grave once you are there

National cemeteries are laid out by section and site number, and most have a kiosk or office with maps. Write down the section and site before you go. Our guide to finding a grave in a cemetery has tips for large cemeteries.