NJ Resource Spotlight: Burial Cards for Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Newark NJ

Have you ever travelled the Garden State Parkway in Essex County, New Jersey? If so, you may recall passing through a rather large cemetery. Headstones appear on both the north and south sides of the Parkway. But don’t worry! According to Wikipedia, the Parkway was not built on top of the cemetery and there are no burials beneath it. The section of the cemetery on the south side was purchased after the Parkway was constructed.

Now, if you were unfortunate enough to get stuck in traffic, which occurs all too often right before Exit 145 (Rt. 280), you may have been impressed by what appears to be a sea of headstones and monuments. The cemetery is filled with early examples of headstones, impressive mausoleums and many funerary sculptures of angels, saints, etc.

Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in East Orange NJ

Wonder what cemetery this is? Good question. The Parkway passes through Holy Sepulchre Roman Catholic Cemetery located in East Orange and Newark, Essex County, New Jersey. The cemetery, part of the Archdiocese of Newark, was founded in 1859. If you had Catholic ancestors who lived in Newark, and neighboring towns in Essex County, in the late 19th and 20th Centuries, there’s a good chance they were buried here. Many of Newark’s Catholic immigrant communities including the Irish, Germans, Poles, Italians, Czechs and Slovaks were buried in Holy Sepulchre.

So how do you know if one of your ancestors was buried in Holy Sepulchre? In your genealogy research, one of the first records you should obtain is the death certificate for your ancestor. The New Jersey death certificate should list the place of burial and possibly the date of burial. Sometimes the name of Holy Sepulchre was shortened on NJ death certificates, so you may see something like CHS – short for Cemetery of the Holy Sepulchre. If they died before 1955 your ancestor’s death certificate can be obtained from the New Jersey State Archives in Trenton, NJ. You can do an in-person search at the Archives or enlist the help of a NJ genealogist. For death certificates issued after 1955, you’ll have to go to the Department of Health and Senior Services, Bureau of Vital Statistics and Registry in Trenton, NJ. You also have the option of visiting the local vital statistics office in the town where your ancestor’s death occurred. Not sure where that is? Click here for a listing of NJ vital records offices.

Genealogy Tip: If you’re going to a local vital statistics office for a death certificate, you need to identify the town where the death of your ancestor occurred. This may not be the same town as where your ancestor last resided. There is always the possibility that your ancestor died at a hospital in a neighboring town, at the home of a relative, or at another location altogether. If you are uncertain where in New Jersey you ancestor died, you’re best bet is to obtain the death certificate at the New Jersey State Archives or at the Bureau of Vital Statistics in Trenton.

In addition to your New Jersey ancestor’s death certificate, you can also search for an obituary or death notice in one of the local Newark NJ newspapers like the Newark Evening News, which is available on microfilm at the Charles F. Cummings New Jersey Information Center at The Newark Public Library. Obituaries and death notices typically mentioned where the deceased was buried.

The Archdiocese of Newark has a Find Your Loved One search on its website. This database is great for several cemeteries in the Newark Archdiocese like Gate of Heaven Cemetery in East Hanover or Holy Cross Cemetery in North Arlington. Holy Sepulchre, however, has yet to be added to the database (as of 20 April 2017).

The Archdiocese’s website notes that they are currently working on adding Holy Sepulchre Cemetery and Holy Name Cemetery in Jersey City. But you definitely should check back in the future. The database usually provides the name of deceased, date of burial and the location of the burial within the cemetery.

While your main focus should be on obtaining your New Jersey ancestor’s death certificate and/or obituary, you can also check a favorite resource of many genealogists: Find A Grave.

Holy Sepulchre’s listing on Find A Grave states there are currently (as of 20 April 2017) 164,261 indexed internments.

Just be forewarned that not all burial entries on Find A Grave will have complete information like the plot number. Plus, information located in an entry that does not come directly from the headstone is not typically sourced, so it is difficult to assess the accuracy of the information inputted by the Find A Grave user.

Searching for Holy Sepulchre Burials

Holy Sepulchre Cemetery is still an active cemetery with a cemetery office. If your NJ ancestor’s death certificate and/or obituary point to Holy Sepulchre for burial, you can visit or call the cemetery and the cemetery’s very helpful staff can search for the location of your ancestor’s burial. They may also be able to tell you if any other relatives are buried with your ancestor.

Please note the cemetery’s policy on genealogy searches:

“Any request other than a grave location is considered an interment search and there is a fee involved. $25.00 for the first name and $5.00 for every name thereafter, per each location.”

Other than the cemetery office, there is another method to find the location of your ancestor’s burial. The Msgr. William Noé Field Archives and Special Collections Center at Seton Hall University in South Orange, NJ has burial cards on microfilm for Holy Sepulchre from 1859 to 1970, arranged alphabetically by surname. According to their catalog, they also have a series of day books for the cemetery covering 1859 to 1914. These records were originally filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah in 1984/1985.

Holy Sepulchre Cemetery Burial Cards

You can search through the burial cards at the Archives at Seton Hall, order the pertinent microfilms from the Family History Library (click here for a list of the films), or you can view the digital images on FamilySearch.org at your local Family History Center.

Genealogy Tip: when searching for the burial card, or any other genealogy record, try alternate spellings of the surname. Variations in spelling of a first name and surname are not uncommon before the second half of the 20th century.

The burial cards can provide a wealth information including the location of the burial, date of death, date of burial, cause of death, where the funeral took place, age at death, the presiding officiant for the burial and the name of the undertaker. You may not find all of this information for every burial card you find, but it is definitely worth the search.

Once you have obtained your NJ ancestor’s burial card you can locate where in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery they are buried. As you can imagine, this is a very large cemetery. You’ll need help from the cemetery office to help point you in the right direction. Trust me, this is not one of those cemeteries you can just walk through and locate your ancestor’s headstone – if they actually have a headstone.

A quick Google search found a handy map of Holy Sepulchre Cemetery on the Kalemba-Malecki Genealogy pages. This map can give you a general idea of where the cemetery sections are located, but you will probably need a bit more help from the cemetery office.

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Genealogy Research in New Jersey

Researching Your New Jersey Family

While access to genealogical information has increased exponentially with the internet, many of the clues needed to find your ancestors aren’t online. They are still waiting to be discovered in archives, historical societies, libraries and special collections.

New Jersey can offer a wealth of information for those researching their recent and more distant ancestors. The trick is knowing where to look and what to look for.

As New Jersey genealogists, our research has taken us everywhere from the New Jersey State Archives in Trenton, to county historical associations, and even to small town public libraries. Each repository offers its own unique resources that can open new research avenues and sometimes break through the hardiest of brick walls.

The main hub of genealogical research in New Jersey is, of course, the New Jersey State Archives in Trenton. Its collections of birth, deaths and marriages are an invaluable resource. Yet, the Archives offers so much more than the standard BDMs. Newspaper collections, court records, divorce records, early colonial records, and a host of county records – deeds, mortgages, naturalizations and wills – are a few of the collections we have searched through first-hand. These additional records can provide important clues and often paint a much broader picture of your ancestors’ lives.

While the Archives is one of the first stops for any researcher, New Jersey also has a network of special collections, archives and historical associations throughout the State. Researchers can access bible and family records at Rutgers’ Special Collections, search through the Archdiocese of Newark’s microfilm collections at Seton Hall, look through early Paterson family files at the Passaic County Historical Society’s Library or locate an early 19th century deed at the Monmouth County Archives in Freehold.

Be sure to familiarize yourself with these great institutions. Many of them provide finding aids and collection descriptions on their website. Knowing ahead of time what you are looking for will make your trip that much easier. Calling ahead or e-mailing the staff before your visit is a great idea too.

One of the most underutilized resources in New Jersey are local public libraries. Many have great collections of obituaries, biographies, city directories, and even high school yearbooks. The New Jersey Rooms at the Newark and Jersey City Public Libraries and the impressive collections at the Plainfield Public Library are just a few examples. There are many more libraries throughout the State with great collections for genealogists and family historians.