The Edinburgh Room, Central Library, has resources which can help the family historian find out about local graves and burials.
Burial Records
We hold microfilm copies of burial records for various churchyards including Greyfriars and Old Calton Cemetery. However, before 1855 it was not compulsory to register a death, and in some cases the parish minister charged a fee, so the records are not complete, and the handwriting can be difficult to read.
In 1855 burial records became the responsibility of the City of Edinburgh Council, which now manages 39 burial grounds in Edinburgh. The Edinburgh Room holds a list of cemeteries and a guide to interment records held by the Council. To access the Council’s burial registers you should contact Bereavement Services at Mortonhall Crematorium.
There are also privately owned cemeteries and crematoria in Edinburgh – we can help with contact details for these.
Records of the cemeteries which were owned by the Edinburgh Cemetery Company until 1994 are stored in Edinburgh City Archives.
Finding out where someone was buried
A good way of tracing where someone was buried is to look at the death notice in the newspaper. These often indicate which cemetery the deceased is buried in. The Edinburgh Room has complete runs of the Scotsman and Edinburgh Evening News on microfilm, and you can get access to the Scotsman Digital Archive.
Gravestones
Gravestones can help you find out more about an ancestor, but unfortunately over the years many have been lost to weathering, or even vandalism and neglect. In many cases it was only the wealthy who could afford a gravestone. The Scottish Genealogy Society has published many volumes of monumental inscriptions recorded by enthusiastic volunteers.
List of volumes of monumental inscriptions held in the Edinburgh Room
- Old Calton and New Calton
- Canongate Churchyard and Holyrood Chapel Royal
- St. John’s Episcopal Churchyard
- Buccleuch Burial Ground, Jewish Burial Ground, Quaker Burial Ground
- Greyfriars
- North Leith, New North Leith, South Leith
- Portobello Old Church, St Mark’s Episcopal Church, Piershill Cemetery Jewish inscriptions
- Restalrig Church
- Colinton Churchyard
- Comely Bank Cemetery
- Corstorphine Old Parish Churchyard
- Cramond Kirk
- St. Cuthbert’s Kirk
- Dean Cemetery
- Friends Burial Place
- Duddingston Kirk
- Morningside Cemetery
- Newington Cemetery
- Greendykes, Inveresk, Liberton, Newton and Newton Old
- Warriston Cemetery
The Scottish Library holds volumes of monumental inscriptions for a number of other Scottish churchyards.
