Cemeteries in Delaware: Search Guide
Introduction
The Delaware Genealogical Society list/database of Delaware cemeteries contains information on over 1,000 current and historical cemeteries. This Search Guide is designed to help the researcher get the most from the information that is available. In particular, the data now contains references to various surveys of cemeteries conducted in the past.
Clicking on any row in the database will display a pop-up showing all the information available on the cemetery.
The following data is available:
Name
The Cemetery name. Many cemeteries are known by multiple names, and these are listed together in the cemetery entry in the list. The Name filter above the listing can be used to find a specific cemetery, e.g., Adkins Burial Ground, or to look see a list of all cemeteries that contain a specific word, e.g., Presbyterian.
Defunct designates a cemetery that no longer exists.
Name Abbreviations and Conventions
The cemetery names have few abbreviations. The following have been adopted as they are typically used as the church or cemetery name:
- AME: African Methodist Episcopal (Church)
- AUME: African Union Methodist Episcopal (Church)
- UAME: Union of African Methodist Episcopal (Church)
- AUMP: African Union First Colored Methodist Protestant (Church and Connection)
- Saint, as in Saint Matthews, is abbreviated as St. Matthews.
To distinguish multiple names for the same cemetery, names after the first are preceded by a “/”. For example: “Williams Family Cemetery / Taylor-Williams Cemetery”
Where there are multiple families in a cemetery name, they are separated by a “-“, as in “Hyland – Waller Cemetery”.
Where there are alternate spellings of a name, the second name is enclosed in parentheses, as in: “Stephenson (Stevenson) Family Cemetery”.
Address
If the street address closest to the cemetery is known, it is displayed. If the cemetery has not been located, the Address contains the locality or best-known location. Note that the street address can be used for navigation to the cemetery, but it is only an approximate location. The GPS location is the precise location of the cemetery, unless otherwise stated in the Notes.
For consistency, most roads are identified by name rather than road number.
Town / Place
Town / Place is the postal location where the cemetery is located, based on the address of the cemetery. The Address filter above the listing can be used to filter the listing by city, town, or zip code.
County
There are 3 counties in Delaware: New Castle, Kent, and Sussex. The County filter above the listing can be used to filter the listing by county.
Hundred
A Hundred is an unincorporated area in each county that dates to colonial times. Hundreds today may appear in a county’s real estate records, but they are shown here as most historical Delaware cemetery surveys (see Sources) reference the hundred where the cemetery is located. The Hundred designation used in this listing is based on research into the historical boundaries of 1877 when the last changes were made to Hundred’s names and boundaries. See the Appendix, below, for a list of Hundreds by county.
The Hundred filter above the listing can be used to show all cemeteries is a Hundred.
Find a Grave
This column contains the link to the Find a Grave entry for the cemetery. Some cemeteries have multiple entries in Find a Grave. The Notes column contains the Find a Grave cemetery numbers for these duplicate listings.
Map
If the location of the cemetery is known, is column contains a link to Google Maps that will show the location of the cemetery.
GPS Location
Although not shown on the main cemetery listing, the GPS coordinates of the cemetery is available on the pop-up by clicking on any data item. If the cemetery location is known precisely, these are the latitude and longitude coordinates. This same data is used in the Map link.
Notes
The Notes field contains valuable information on the cemetery. The items available include:
- Comments on the Find a Grave listing, e.g., noting the history of the cemetery, and the Find a Grave cemetery number of duplicates. To access the duplicates, use the URL: https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/xxxxxxx, where xxxxxxx is the cemetery number given in the Notes.
- Directions to the cemetery. These are useful for cemeteries that have not been located precisely, i.e., they do not have a GPS coordinate.
- Historically African American cemeteries are identified as such in the Notes.
- If the GPS coordinates are approximate, it is stated in the Notes.
- Attribution to Notes text:
- FG: — located at the end of text this denotes that it is quote from the Find a Grave listing
- Dill: — located at the beginning of text this denotes material quoted from Dill (see Source List)
- TSC: — located at the beginning of text this denotes material quoted from the Tombstones of Sussex County (see Source List)
- Source references. See Sources for a description of the material. The sources are coded as follows:
- Dill, Souls in Heaven, Names in Stone: Kent County, Delaware, Cemetery Records recorded cemeteries by a map matrix, creating a unique identifier. All Dill references are shown as Dill cemetery id, e.g., Dill J-20.
- Hudson, Cemetery Records of Sussex County, Delaware, identified cemeteries by a unique number. These cemeteries are identified by Hudson followed by the cemetery number, e.g., Hudson-351.
- Tatnall, Tombstone Records, New Castle, Kent, and Sussex County, Delaware, are typically identified by the page number where the cemetery appeared in his manuscript. These cemeteries are identified by Tatnall followed by the page number, e.g., Tatnall-226.
- TSC, Tombstones of Sussex County Delaware, a project of the Downstate Delaware Genealogical Society, recorded cemeteries by Hundred. See the Appendix, below, for the coding used for cemeteries listed in this source. TSC also references Hudson and Tatnall cemeteries.
Appendix
Hundreds by County
| County | Hundred |
| Kent | Duck Creek |
| East Dover | |
| Kenton | |
| Little Creek | |
| Milford | |
| Mispillion | |
| North Murderkill | |
| South Murderkill | |
| West Dover | |
| New Castle | Appoquinimink |
| Blackbird | |
| Brandywine | |
| Christiana | |
| Mill Creek | |
| New Castle | |
| Pencader | |
| Red Lion | |
| St. Georges | |
| White Clay Creek | |
| Wilmington | |
| Sussex | Baltimore |
| Broad Creek | |
| Broadkiln | |
| Cedar Creek | |
| Dagsborough | |
| Georgetown | |
| Gumborough | |
| Indian River | |
| Lewes & Rehoboth | |
| Little Creek | |
| Nanticoke | |
| Northwest Fork | |
| Seaford |
TSC Codes
Tombstones of Sussex County Delaware identifies the cemetery by a Hundred code, followed by a number, e.g., LC-004 identifies a cemetery in Little Creek Hundred.
| Hundred Code | Hundred |
| BA | Baltimore |
| BC | Broad Creek |
| BK | Broadkill |
| CC | Cedar Creek |
| DA | Dagsboro |
| GN | Georgetown |
| GU | Gumboro |
| IR | Indian River |
| LR | Lewes & Rehoboth |
| LC | Little Creek |
| NA | Nanticoke |
| NF | Northwest Fork |
| SE | Seaford |
In addition, cemeteries researched after the publication of Tombstones of Sussex County Delaware are identified as TSC: DDGS website. These can be accessed at https://www.downstatedegenealogists.org/fileDownload.php?sid=9
12/14/2023