8.4 Sexton Records
“A sexton is the office of the person or persons who are in charge of a cemetery.” 1 If a cemetery has been identified, it is worth a researcher’s time to go to the cemetery website to see what records are available. If practical, it may also be worth an in-person trip to determine if there is valuable information listed in the sexton records. These are records kept by the cemetery that have information about the burial, but they may also have medical records connected to the death, information about incarceration or hospital stays preceding the death, mortician’s notes, records about the relatives of the deceased, along with other valuable information which might have been kept by the mortuary.
CHICAGO STYLE:
In quotes include the title of the document/webpage, end quotations then name of person or people with the event and date followed by the place, italicized title of the website, author or sponsor of the website if known, accessed date with month spelled out followed by numerical day, year, url. 2
“Find a Service, Grave, or Obituary,” Fracisco A. Aurellano buried in Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills’ Tenderness Park, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States, Forest Lawn, accessed February 2, 2025, https://sgo.forestlawn.com/?search=1&sradio=grave&&fname=Francisco&slast=Aurellano#sgo_results.
EVIDENCE EXPLAINED:
Name of cemetery followed by city, state in parentheses, italicized website title, description of database, (url : standardized access date) name, specific burial information. 3
Forest Lawn (Los Angeles, California). Forest Lawn Memorial Park: Hollywood Hills, database without images (https://sgo.forestlawn.com/?search=1sradio=gravefname=Franciscoslast=Aurellano#sgo_results : accessed 2 February 2025), Francisco Aurellano; citing map # E12, lot 2549, space 4 B.
SENSIBLE CITATION:
Title of the webpage in quotation marks followed by the name of the memorialized followed by standardized date of death and buried in standardized place made up of cemetery and working through larger jurisdictions, database description, identifying information from the record, website name in italics, sponsoring entity or author if known, access date in standardized format. Embed the url from the person’s name to the end of the standardized place.
“Find a Service, Grave, or Obituary,” Francisco A. Aurellano died 02 January 1998 and buried in Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills’ Tenderness Park, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States, online database, map E12, lot 2594, space 4B, Forest Lawn, accessed 2 February 2025.
Get off the computer and go out to research in-person every once in a while. Genealogy was an engaging activity long before computers were invented.
Some feel unsettled visiting the resting places of the dead, but others find comfort in it and treat graveyards as parks. One empowering aspect of family history is that genealogists may feel empowered by being able to do something in regards to death. When people are remembered and memorialized, they live on in the memories of the living; sacrificing time and energy to document and understand their lives is a noble pursuit. In writing about cemeteries and the discomfort she sometimes feels around them, author Margaret Bendroth penned “It is hard to think about people who have lived full and eventful lives, only to end up as a faded name on a monument; it is even harder to realize that this will eventually happen to me and to all the people I love." 4
CHICAGO STYLE:
Name of person memorialized buried in standardized place up to the state, personal visit by inset name of person who went to the cemetery, date of visit in format of spelled out month then numerical date, year. 5
Francisco A. Aurellano buried buried in Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills’ Tenderness Park, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, personal visit by Vanessa Torringsen, July 24, 2000.
EVIDENCE EXPLAINED:
Name of cemetery (standardized location of cemetery), name of person memorialized followed by the word marker, section and directional information need to find the grave; personally read, year. From “personally read, the rest of the citation is in bold. 6
Forest Lawn (Hollywood Hills, Tenderness Park, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States), Francisco A. Aurellano marker, map E12, lot 2594, space 4B; personally read, 2000.
SENSIBLE CITATION:
Name of person memorialized died on standardized date, buried in standardized place which includes the name of cemetery, followed by jurisdictions from smallest up to the country, identifying information someone would use to find the grave if they were at the cemetery, personal visit standardized date.
Francisco A. Aurellano died 02 January 1998 and buried in Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills’ Tenderness Park, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States, map E12, lot 2594, space 4B, personal visit 24 July 2000.