Not many cemeteries in the Netherlands can be found on international websites like Find a Grave or Billion Graves. There is no Dutch equivalent for these sites, but there are several websites that provide photos of graves.
Grave of Dinant Hoitink
General grave websites
- Online begraafplaatsen (online cemeteries). Over 500,000 graves from around the Netherlands. To search for a person, fill in the Achternaam (last name) and Voornaam (first name) and press Zoek (Search). No results? Try just searching for the last name as the first name may be incomplete on the grave.
- Graftombe (grave tomb). Select the English version in the top right corner and then click Search. This will give you a list of results including the IDs of the photo. The actual photos can be requested by registered users. Registration is free.
- Begraafplaatsen online (cemeteries online). It provides lists of cemeteries per location. In many cases, once you click through to the cemetery, you can search a list of names.
- Stenen Archief (stone archive). Has indexes and photos of Jewish cemeteries.
War graves
- Slachtofferregister Oorlogsgravenstichting (Victim register War Graves Foundation). List of all war graves of Dutch citizens, whether in the Netherlands or elsewhere. Select Slachtoffers and then type in the Achternaam (last name) and Voornamen (first name) or Voorletters (Initials) and press Zoeken (search).
- Adoptiegraven (adopted graves). Graves of American soldiers, adopted by volunteers.
Specific cemeteries
- Bredevoort, Mauritsstraat.
- Sint Anna ter Muiden, church yard.
- Winterswijk, Oude Algemene Begraafplaats (Old General Cemetery). Select Oude Algemene Begraafplaats and then Graven op naam (graves by name) to find the grave number. Then select the corresponding photo page from the Foto nummer (photo number) pages.
- Winterswijk, Nieuwe Algemene Begraafplaats (New General Cemetery). Section A only.
- Winterswijk, Roman Catholic Cemetery in the village.
- Winterswijk, Roman Catholic cemetery in Meddo.
Found the grave?
Just because you found a grave on one of these websites does not mean it is still there. Graves are routinely cleared. Some volunteers photograph stones before they are cleared and add them to these websites to capture the information for future genealogists.
Cannot find the grave?
If the grave is not indexed in one of these websites, it can be hard to find where a person is buried. The information is not included in the death record. You may find an announcement in the newspaper (see Delpher) or in family papers. Otherwise, you could contact the cemeteries in the area where they died, or check the finding aids for the archives in the area to see if old cemetery registers have been turned over to archives. But there is no rule that people should be buried where they died. My grandparents died in Enschede but chose to be buried in their birth place, Winterswijk, for example.
Additions?
Do you have additions for this list? Please leave a comment and we’ll update this page.
About Yvette Hoitink
I just found your site and love it. I hope to be able to add some additional information to my family tree. I go back to 1623 when my 7th grandpa was born in Holland. Dirck (Dirkse) van Heemstraaten. I have a lot of information on the LDS web and Ancestry.com. I wish I could find more information on this grandpa and before him. thank you for your web, it has a lot of information.
Hi Caroline,
Van Heemstraaten is not a Dutch name that I know of. It does not appear in the catalog of the Central Bureau for Genealogy nor in the surname database of the Meertens Institute. It sounds a bit like a Frisian name, Hiemstra, so maybe that can be a clue.
“van Heemstra” more than likely.
We are coming to the Netherlands for a holiday and I would love to visit my uncles grave while there. He is a New Zealander that married a Dutch lady and they moved to The Netherlands in the late 60’s. We lost contact. There were no children
His name was Harold Gretton and he married Deanna ?. He was a teacher and a published poet and author.
Hello
I am traveling to the Netherlands (from Australia) in July and I’m hoping to find my Opa’s grave.
Hi details are:
Petrus van Velzen
Born Delft 15th September 1898
Died Delft 3rd May 1937
From his funeral notice it said the Service was on 7th May 1937 at The Paroniekirk of the sacrament Simon Street and he was to be buried at the Roman Catholic cemetery HH Sacramentten.
If you have any ideas where I could start to try and locate him it would be greatly appreciated, I have tried Google for everything but to no avail.
Thanks so much
Hi, I’m looking to track down my husband’s father. He passed away in Holland in 2015. we dont know where he was buried. we would love to find so we could visit and lay some flowers and have a proper good bye.
we have very limited information as we don’t know the name of the town he lived in.
Dear Gillian,
I recommend you order his personal record card from the Central Bureau for Genealogy. That should give you his place of death, which you can then use to find out which cemeteries were around. See https://www.dutchgenealogy.nl/personal-record-card/ for instructions.
Found this a couple of years ago. http://www.kerk-verhuizen.nl/algemeen/grafzerken. If you scroll down to the map, you can click onto any of the other churches in Groningen. Found some relatives, in these old church grave sites. Glad they are still around.
Hello, I will write a part of my answer I got from Iliona Buck and Sonja Annacker in EV.-Luth Kiechenkreis – hhsh.de In Pinnenberg Germany about the searching for Jacob Bendix born 1686-1770 and his wife Elisabeth Bendix born unknown place 1686-1777 in Germany. But now some people say´s that shall be Uetersen in the Netherlands instead perferably. Iliona Buck wrote this answer her below.
Of course, at first, the amount is quite high, but you always have to weigh what you can research yourself and what not. Important is first what the ancestors had for a faithful, that borders the churches among each other. We belong to the EV.-Luth Church circle , one would never find entry of Catholic faith or Jewish faith here. THere are also no baptismal entry of Jacob Bendix in Uetersen in the period 1686-1770.
She continues and so on . What do you think about this genealogical issue . ? Maybe this shall be in the Netherlands instead in Uetersen there . What about that . ???
Yours sincerely: Magnus Johansen – Gedaliah Ben Yohanan , FAROE ISLANDS.
The DNA TEST has begun and I will get the result abt. 4 .SEPTEMBER this Year 2018 from Baar in their Labratory in Switzerland , who has the largest DATA BANK of Jewish Samples. E 32067 – 15700b , I am still awayting.
I haven’t heard about this company. I’m surprised any database has more Jewish samples than Ancestry. What kind of test is it? Just ethnicity or do you get matches too? Matches are usually the most useful part of a DNA test for genealogists.
What kind of Test is it. It is a Swab DNA TEST KIT No : E32067 -15700b about Genealogy Research or to find my Ancestors who Matches with myself. It is on Google : IGENEA AG Swiss company in Switzerland.
Interesting, thanks!
Hi, I´v got my answer at 2-4 August from IGENEA AG DNA Center in Baar in Switzerland.
Dear Magnus. !
Your test results show no percentage of Jewish origin. This means it is rather improbable , that you have jewish ancestry within the last 4 – 5 generations. You might have a jewish ancestor more generations ago, but this usually not shows up as a percentage. We recommend to check your list with genetic relatives. If you can find a relative with jewish ancestry, this can be a hint , that you also have a few jewish ancestors more than 4 – 5 generations ago.
We will happily answer any further questions you may have. Yours sincerely : Roman C. Scholz .
Interesting, thank you for sharing!
Your site was very helpful. I was looking for my Mother-in-law’s brother, Ben Brabants, burial site. She just passed away two weeks ago. I found his site right away. Thank-you.
Now I am looking for her parents. Their names are: Adolf Juliana Brabants & Agnes Josephina Neyman.
I did not find them the same way as her brother.
I am hoping to go to the Netherlands next year to rest her near her parents, if you can find them.
At the same time travel with my son , her grandson, and show him the places his grandmother grow up during WWII.
Can you help me?
Thank-you a lot.
Bless you.
I have to have a headstone engraved for my son, and I would like to know the “rules / traditions” for engraving a Dutch name. Our name is van der Kieft, the ancestor having come to the U.S. from Utrecht mid-19th century. We have continued to spell it as above. The headstone supplier has written the name in all capital letters, three words, with the last KIEFT written in larger font than the VAN DER. Is that common? Or, when all capital letters are used, should they all be the same size with only the “K” larger than the other ones? Or, is it common to just space out the three words and keep them all the same size?
Hi Yvette,
I found your site very helpful and informative. My Grandfather came over from the Netherlands to the UK in 1945, I have plenty of information on him and have since found out a lot more from before he came to this country.
We have just one mystery. He had a daughter (my Aunt) in the Netherlands, information on her was scant. I now know when she was born, and when she died. We really want to know where she was interred, sadly she died at the age of 12 on 24 February 1945, in Rotterdam. Do you have any tips on finding where she is buried? The burial search on your site was the most helpful but did not come up with a result.
Best Regards
Hello!
I just found your site because I’m looking for relatives who lived in Den Haag. Louis Paul Fredericus Anna Maria Lohbeck (* 07.08.1896 Amsterdam) and his wife Maria Catharina Louise Paulina née Oermann (* 25.08.1892 Nienburg/Weser) had a daughter, Marianne Paulina Agnes Lohbeck (* 19.01.1923 Nienburg/Weser). They seemed to have never returned to Germany where she came from. I have register records I have found online and don’t know what the remarks mean. Could you maybe help me? All the Best, Hendrik
Yvette; my parents came to USA late 1920s. In 1986, I visited to find traces of family in St. Jansteen, Gemeente Hulst. Happily I found living relatives but with limited time, I found no ancestor’s graves, if any exist. The Catholic church yard had recent graves surrounding a large mound of soil with many grave markers placed around it. Apparently the mound was recycled graves. When asked if my my Grandparents burial place was that mound, My cousin said “we can’t cover all of Holland with graves” and that grave recycling is the norm, but my Grandfather, being a church elder, was likely interred in a permanent grave somewhere. With limited time I failed to locate the so called permanent cemetery, if it exists. Land being precious, I understand grave recycling but it deprives us of graves as genealogy tools. I’d like your comments on permanent vs temporary graves in NL.
Most graves are temporary. It used to be possible to buy a grave, but that was very expensive. Most church elders weren’t rich, so I would not expect to find a grave still.
There are still cemeteries with permanent graves in the Netherlands. My father-in-law is buried in one. He died in 1990. Because his grave was purchased before the year 2015 his grave will not be cleared, it’s a permanent grave. That’s what the municipality told me last year.