Dallas Cemeteries



Everything is big in Texas and especially in the city of Dallas. It is located in the northeast corner of Texas and has a long history. The city today is about 365 square miles in land size and over 6.3 million in population making it the ninth largest city in the United States. An early settlement established by John Neely Bryan in 1841 was the birth of this city. He encouraged families to come to this new settlement and they started arriving slowly in 1842. Bryan served as the post master, operated a ferry service and a general store as well as his home serving as a local courthouse. The first medical doctor came in 1843 and more families after wards.

For anyone having ancestors going back to the 1840s in Dallas and who died and were buried in the city, the Dallas Genealogy Society has placed online a nice collection of the many cemeteries in the Dallas area. A listing of those available are on the left side of the homepage. There is also a link to go to the search box so all the cemeteries can be checked if you are not sure which one. Do check out the one labeled ‘Pioneer’ if you had ancestors in Dallas’ early years – 1840s to 1870s, many were buried in the original cemetery in Dallas.

With each link to a certain cemetery there is a brief history and description of that cemetery. The Oakland Cemetery opened in 1892 and covers 60 acres with 30,000 burials. To better understand the transcriptions from the headstones there is also the initial used and what each represent. For example ‘s/o’ means ‘son of’. Next click on the link to the left, ‘Search Database’ where the cemetery name appears and you place a surname or an ancestor’s maiden name.

What appears is an index with those names, the dates, the type of headstone, the sections and lot numbers. To the far right is ‘view more info’ where you can select to see all the other headstones next to and alongside the one you are seeking information on. This is especially good to use to see if another ancestor is buried nearby. This can be helpful when a daughter was buried in the family plot and you did not know her married name. Other information in the ‘view more info’ may have the funeral home name, the burial lot owner, cause of death and an exact age at death.

The site has approximate 20,000 names indexed and more are being added. So with any Dallas ancestors or if they were buried in Dallas, it is worth looking into the database.

Photo:  Entrance of Fields Cemetery.

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