Burial register

Purpose and content of the burial register

The burial register is the official register of a cemetery in which all burial-related information is recorded. It serves several purposes: administration of grave sites, monitoring of burial rights, providing information to family members and preserving historical memory. The Burial Act obliges every cemetery operator to maintain a burial register, and its content is regulated by both law and the church's own guidelines.

The burial register records at least the following details for each burial: the personal details of the buried person (name, personal identity code, dates of birth and death), date of burial, method of burial (coffin burial, urn burial or scattering of ashes), exact location of the grave site, and details of the burial right holder. Any grave maintenance agreements, headstone details and the usage history of the grave are also recorded.

Historical development

In Finland, the keeping of burial registers has its roots in the long administrative tradition of the Lutheran Church. The oldest surviving burial register entries date from the 1600s and 1700s, when the church records kept by parishes also contained information about burials. The systematic keeping of separate burial registers became common in the 1800s as cemeteries grew and the need for administration increased.

Old burial registers are irreplaceable historical sources. They provide information about a locality's population structure, mortality, epidemics and social differences. Burial registers may reflect the class society of different eras: the most prominent families were allocated visible locations in the centre of the churchyard, while the poor were buried on the outskirts. During wartime, the details of war heroes' graves were recorded in burial registers, forming an important part of national memory.

Digital burial register

In the 2000s, parish burial registers have moved to digital format. Modern systems combine burial register data with map bases, allowing the location of a grave site to be displayed visually. This facilitates both administrative work and dealings with family members. Some parishes offer a web-based search service where anyone can search for information about those buried in the cemetery.

Digitisation has also brought challenges. Transferring old paper burial registers to electronic form is laborious and requires precision. Data protection questions have arisen: how to balance the need for transparency in genealogical research with the data protection rights of family members. Burial register data is generally provided for research purposes, but the processing of personal data is regulated by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) also regarding the deceased, insofar as the data relates to living family members.

Genealogy and burial registers

Burial registers are a significant source in genealogical research. They supplement the information in church records (registers of births, baptisms, deaths and burials), and they may contain details not found in other sources. Information about grave sites is particularly useful, as members of the same family have often been buried in the same grave over different decades. Genealogists can enquire about burial register information directly from parish offices. The National Archives preserves the oldest church records, which also contain burial register entries, in digitised form in the Digital Archives.