Rhode Island Historical Cemeteries Database Index

The Rhode Island Historical Cemeteries Transcription Project was begun by genealogists in 1990 as a way of pooling existing information on gravestone inscriptions in the state. Under the direction of project coordinator John Sterling, volunteers were to find all existing transcriptions of Rhode Island cemeteries, whether or not the burial ground still remained, enter the data into the computer, and then use the printout to check surviving stones. Sterling and his volunteers found over a hundred transcriptions covering about two thousand cemeteries — some running to several thousand pages — and entered the data into a database. They then sent volunteers into the field with a printout to see which stones were still there, whether they were correctly transcribed, and if new stones had been added. They also mapped the location of each stone within each cemetery.

When all of the cemeteries of a town were recorded and checked, a book was published containing the transcriptions. Eight books have been published so far and they are available through the Rhode Island Cemeteries Database Home Page . Please remember that the Rhode Island Cemetery Transcription Project is a work in progress. The original goal was to transcribe all seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth-century gravestones, and probably ninety-five percent of these are now recorded. Some cemeteries included in the database are still being worked on, in which case not every name will be found in the index.

This database contains only the index to the complete transcription database. If you find your ancestor, you will want to visit one of the locations with the full database to see the rest of the information on the gravestone. Please refer to the following article written by John Sterling for detailed information on the project and where to find the full database.

To locate additional genealogy and local history resources, search our library catalog.