Brazil Cemeteries

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Brazil

Cemeteries

Civil cemetery records generally begin after 1840. In São Paulo the first cemeteries of Consolação and Santo Amaro date from 1856. Some minority churches had their own cemeteries, including:

• Gamboa, an early English cemetery in Rio de Janeiro that was established in 1810.
• São Francisco Xavier in Rio de Janeiro, a cemetery for other nationalities that was established in 1840.
• São João Batista, a cemetery established in Rio de Janeiro in 1852 for other nationalities.
• Cemitério dos Protestantes (Cemeteries of the Protestants) in São Paulo that was established in 1858.
• Cemitério da Vila Formosa in São Paulo is the largest cemetery in Latin America, that is, everything south of the contiguous 48 states of the United States. Located in the east of the city, it was started in 1949 and presently has over 1.5 million burials, with around 300 more taking place each month.
• The Lutheran cemetery in Nova Friburgo that was established in 1824.

Besides cemeteries, consult newspapers and other publications in the cities where the death occurred.

Online Records

• Brazil Cemeteries by State at Internment.net Limited collection
• Brazil Cemetery Memorials at BillionGraves.com Also indexed on FamilySearch.org Limited collection. Index & images
• Brazil Cemetery Memorials at FindAGrave.com Also indexed on FamilySearch.org Limited collection. Index & images
• Brazil List of Cemeteries at Genealogias.org Limited collection. Index only. In Portuguese
• Brazil, Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Cemetery Records, 1897-2012 at FamilySearch Browsable images
• Brazil, São Paulo, São Paulo, Burial Records, 1858-1977 at FamilySearch Limited collection. Browsable images

Cemetery Records

Cemetery records may provide the following information:

Birth year/date of birth Death year/date of death Marriage information (sometimes) Military service (sometimes)

Religion (sometimes) Occupation (sometimes) Place of residence at time of death (sometimes) Membership in an organization such as a fraternal society (sometimes)

Funeral homes and mortuaries in the area will often have lists of cemeteries in the region. If you know the specific area where your ancestors resided, you may want to ask the local Cartório do Registro Civil (Registry of Civil Records) if any burial plots exist on private land anywhere nearby, or you may want to consult a local telephone directory.

Cemetery locations may also be found on local maps of the area. The present sexton or minister may have the burial registers and the records of the burial plots. A local library, historical society, or local historian may also help you locate obscure family plots or relocated cemeteries.

Cemetery records can be divided into two categories: gravestone inscriptions and written records.

Gravestone Inscriptions

Gravestone inscriptions include the information recorded on gravestones/tombstones and transcripts of the information on the stones.

Several online databases have transcriptions and images of gravestones in Brazil.

• Brazil Cemeteries by State at Internment.net (limited collection)
• Brazil Cemetery Memorials at BillionGraves.com Also indexed on FamilySearch.org
• Brazil Cemetery Memorials at FindAGrave.com Also indexed on FamilySearch.org
• Brazil, Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Cemetery Records, 1897-2012 at FamilySearch
• Brazil, São Paulo, São Paulo, Burial Records, 1858-1977 at FamilySearch

Some of the monumental inscriptions may be found in manuscripts and printed books in libraries.

The following publication includes the listing of names in the Confederate Cemetery of Americana, São Paulo:

• Oliveira, Betty Antunes de. North American Immigration to Brazil: Tombstone records of the cemetery, Santa Bárbara d’Oeste, São Paulo State, Brazil. Brasília: Gráfica do Senado Federal, 1978. FHL 981.61/S2 V3a; film copy FHL 1162423.

Written Records

Many persons could not afford permanent purchase of the grave and gravestone or monument, so after a period of time the grave was reused. Written cemetery records can be especially helpful for identifying ancestors who were not recorded in other records, such as children who died young. Because relatives may be buried in adjoining plots, it is best to examine the original records.

Written records include:

Cemetery sextons' records Municipal cemetery records Church yard records

Grave books Plot books Maps

To find tombstone or sexton records you need to know where an individual was buried. The person may have been buried in a church, community, or private cemetery, usually near the place where he or she lived or died. You can find clues to burial places in funeral notices, church records, and death certificates.

A few sextons’ records and transcripts of tombstone information have been published, including:

• Dullius, Werner Mabilde. Cemitérios das Colônias Alemãs no Rio Grande do Sul (Cemeteries of German Colonies in Rio Grande do Sul). Porto Alegre: Editora Gráfica Metrópole, 1985. FHL 981.65 V3d
• English, Elisabeth Doby. "Cemitério Dos Campos," United Daughters of the Confederacy Magazine. Vol. XXIII, no. 9, Sept. 1960, pp. 25–27. FHL 973 B2ud
• Wolff, Egon. Sepulturas de Israelitas – II: Uma Pesquisa em mais de Trinta Cemitérios não Israelitas (Jewish Burials: A Search in More Than Thirty Non-Jewish Cemeteries). Rio de Janeiro: Cemitério Comunal Israelita, 1983. FHL 981 V3w

Other than these few sources, the Family History Library does not have cemetery records for Brazil.

Wiki Articles Describing These Collections

Brazil, Cemetery Records - FamilySearch Historical Records
Brazil, São Paulo, São Paulo, Burial Records - FamilySearch Historical Records