Flagstone / Guide
How to move a township's cemetery records from paper to a computer
Gather every source, photograph the paper before you handle it, agree on one way to name a grave, enter the lots before the people, and check the result against the headstones. Keep the books. The steps are the same whether you end up in a spreadsheet or in cemetery software.
The steps
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Gather every source in one place
Most townships have more than one record of the same cemetery: the lot book or register, interment cards, deed stubs or a sales ledger, one or more plat maps, the fee schedule, and whatever the sexton keeps in the truck. Find them all before entering anything. They will disagree with each other, and you want to know that at the start.
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Photograph or scan the paper first
Before the books are handled for weeks of typing, make a picture of every page. A phone is enough: lay the page flat, use good light, get the whole page in the frame. Name the files by book and page so an entry can always be traced back to where it came from.
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Agree on one way to name a grave
Decide how a place in the cemetery is written down and use it everywhere: cemetery, section, row, lot, grave. Old books often mix systems, with blocks in one section and rows in another. Write the rule on one page and keep it with the records. Where the book and the plat use different numbers for the same ground, note both.
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Enter the lots before the people
Start with one line per lot: where it is, how many graves it holds, whether it is available, sold or occupied, who owns it, the deed number, the date and the price paid. The lots are the skeleton. Once they exist, every burial has somewhere to go.
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Enter the burials and tie each one to its lot
For each burial, enter the name as the record spells it, the dates the record gives, the grave within the lot, and whether the person was a veteran. Add where the entry came from, such as the book and page. Enter only what the record says. If the book gives a year and no day, enter the year and leave the rest blank.
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Check it against the ground
Take the list for one section and walk it. Stones will be where the book says nothing, and the book will list burials with no stone. Do not overwrite either one. Flag the difference, note what you saw, and take a photo of the stone. These are the entries the clerk, the sexton and the board settle over time.
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Put the lots on a map
Lay the plat over an aerial photograph of the cemetery and outline each lot. This is what lets someone find a grave without the clerk walking them to it. The outlines are a guide for finding a lot, not a survey for settling a boundary, and the map should say so.
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Decide what the public sees
A name, dates, the lot and veteran status are what a family needs to find a grave. Owner contact details, payments, deeds and office notes should stay in the office. Make that decision once, in writing, before anything goes online.
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Keep it alive
From the day the records are in, every new burial and sale goes into the same place, on the day it happens. Decide who is allowed to change a record, keep a copy somewhere other than the office computer, and make sure you can always get the whole thing out in a plain format such as CSV.
Mistakes that are hard to undo
- Guessing a date. A blank is honest. A guessed date looks exactly like a real one ten years later.
- Correcting spellings. Enter the name as the record has it. If the stone spells it differently, note that as well.
- Deleting what looks like a duplicate. Two entries for the same name are often two people, or one person recorded in two books. Check before removing either.
- A different layout for every section. If each section gets its own spreadsheet tab with its own columns, nobody can search across them.
- Throwing the books away. The paper is the original and the proof behind every entry. Keep it.
Spreadsheet or cemetery software?
A spreadsheet is a fine place to start, and it is far better than a book alone. It can hold the list. What it cannot do is show who changed a record and when, let two people work at once without overwriting each other, draw the map, or let a family look up a grave without calling the office.
Cemetery software does those things. If you start in a spreadsheet and move later, nothing is wasted, because a clean spreadsheet imports straight in.
Where Flagstone fits. Steps 2 to 7 are what we do for a township as setup: we take the lot book, cards or spreadsheet as they are, enter them, flag duplicates and dates that cannot be read so nothing is silently wrong, and draw the lots over the aerial from your plat. You review it before it goes live. See what that costs, or try the clerk app with sample records.
Written by the developer of Flagstone. Published November 2026.
Questions clerks ask about going digital
Have one that is not here? Ask us.
Can we just keep our cemetery records in Excel?
Yes, and it is a good first step. A spreadsheet holds the list well. It does not keep a history of changes, it is easy for one person to overwrite another's work, it has no map, and families cannot search it. Starting there and moving to cemetery software once the list is clean works well.
Should we get rid of the paper books once everything is entered?
No. Keep them. The books are the original record and the proof behind every entry. Photograph every page so there is a second copy, and store the originals somewhere dry and safe.
What do we do when the lot book and the headstones disagree?
Record both and flag the difference. Do not overwrite the book with the stone or the stone with the book. Note what each says and add a photo of the stone. The clerk, sexton and board can then settle those entries one at a time.
Do we need GPS coordinates for every grave?
No. Outlining each lot over an aerial photograph, using the plat as the guide, is accurate enough for someone to walk to a grave. It is a guide for finding a lot, not a survey.
What if a record only has a year, or no date at all?
Enter exactly what the record gives and leave the rest blank. Never fill in a date by guessing. A blank can be completed later when a stone or an obituary turns up; a wrong date gets copied forever.
Where should a township start?
With the lots, not the burials, and with one cemetery or one section, not all of them. Getting one section right, from the book to the ground to the map, shows you every problem you will meet in the rest.
Would you rather not do the typing?
Tell us what your lot book looks like. We will give you one fixed figure for entering the records and drawing the map, in writing, before any work starts.