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Saturday, February 4, 2012

Find a Veteran Grave: Guest Post


There are over 6 million veterans and family members of veterans buried across the United States.  And when you want to pay your respects, it can be very hard to locate a veteran’s burial place.  The department of Veterans Affairs keeps a massive database of burial sites of veterans and their beneficiaries, such as spouses and children.  But this database is jumbled, messy and confusing.  But a new online tool has cleaned up this data and made it searchable and easy to navigate.  Now, anyone can easily find a veteran grave for free on LocateGrave.org.

Users can search for a veteran by name, cemetery, date of birth, military rank and military branch.  Once you have narrowed down your search, you can click on a veteran to see the detailed information regarding their burial.  A map will help you locate the cemetery and the cemetery’s phone number will be displayed.  If you are logged in to facebook, you can also leave a prayer or note to remember the veteran. 

A similar online tool also powered by FindTheData.org is the Medal of Honor Recipients database.  Like the veteran grave locator, the Medal of Honor tool allows you to search for recipients based on war, rank and name.

This is a guest post written by Evan Thomas, a student at UCSB that has partnered with FindTheData to help create these tools.  FindtheData is an unbiased search engine that allows you to compare everything from Section-8 Housing to Non-Profit Organizations.  If you have any questions or comments about the grave locator, feel free to contact Evan at evan_thomas (@) umail.ucsb.edu