Find a Grave Cemetery Scraper

Find a Grave Cemetery Scraper

Scrape cemetery records from Find a Grave by name, location, or direct URL, up to a million per run. Each record includes the cemetery name, GPS coordinates, memorial count, and full address. No login or API key. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

Find a Grave's official API is not public, and manual lookups are slow when you need cemetery data at scale. This Actor reads the public cemetery search and detail pages directly, filtered by name, country, state, county, or postal code, and returns each match in one fixed schema.

Who uses it	What they scrape Find a Grave for
Genealogists	Build a list of cemeteries in a region to plan research trips
Funeral industry analysts	Map cemetery density and capacity by county or postal code
Local historians	Compile an inventory of burial grounds for a heritage project
Data journalists	Compare cemetery sizes and locations for a story on urban planning

What it does

This Actor collects cemetery records from Find a Grave by search query or direct URL, and returns each cemetery as a flat row with its name, location, and memorial counts.

• 🔍 Name search: enter a cemetery name like 'Arlington' or 'Greenwood' and get every match.
• 📍 Location filters: narrow by country, state, county, or ZIP code using Find a Grave's own IDs.
• 🔗 Direct URL: paste any Find a Grave cemetery search or detail URL and scrape exactly that page.
• ⚡ Bulk runs: set a maximum up to 1,000,000 records and let the Actor paginate through all results.
• 🧵 Concurrency control: tune parallel requests from 1 to 10 to balance speed and politeness.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with Find a Grave data

🌳 Build a genealogy research list.

A genealogist enters a state and county to get every cemetery in that area, then cross-references burial records for family names.

📊 Analyze funeral market coverage.

A market researcher scrapes all cemeteries in a metro area by ZIP code to estimate capacity and identify underserved neighborhoods.

🗺️ Create a local history map.

A historical society scrapes a county's cemeteries with GPS coordinates to build an interactive map of burial grounds.

📰 Investigate land use conflicts.

A journalist compares cemetery locations and sizes against new development permits to find potential heritage site clashes.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
No API key	Uses the public website, so you can start scraping in minutes
Structured output	Every cemetery comes back as a flat row with consistent fields
Scalable	From one cemetery to a million, the Actor handles pagination for you
Flexible input	Search by name, location, or exact URL, whichever fits your workflow

How it compares

This Actor scrapes cemetery-level records from Find a Grave, while the BillionGraves Scraper targets grave-level records from a different source.

Feature	ParseForge	BillionGraves Scraper
Cemetery name and location	Yes	Not listed
GPS coordinates	Yes	Yes
Memorial count per cemetery	Yes	Not listed
Search by cemetery name	Yes	Not listed
Filter by country, state, county, ZIP	Yes	Not listed
Direct URL input	Yes	Not listed

Configure the run

Drive the Actor from a cemetery name, location filters, or a direct Find a Grave URL, and filters run as each page is read so only matching cemeteries reach your dataset. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
  "maxItems": 10,
  "searchQuery": "Arlington",
  "countryId": "4"
}

A larger pull:

{
  "maxItems": 200,
  "searchQuery": "Arlington",
  "countryId": "4"
}

Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.01599 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$1.60
1,000 results	$15.99
10,000 results	$159.90

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the Find a Grave Cemetery Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to Find a Grave through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/cemetery-records-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results?

Check your search query and location filters. If you provided a Start URL, the filters are ignored. Also verify that the cemetery name is spelled correctly and that the country/state IDs are valid.

The run stops after 100 records even though I set a higher maximum.

Free Apify users are limited to 100 records per run. Upgrade to a paid plan to scrape more.

I get a timeout or rate limit error.

Lower the Max Concurrency to 1 or 2 and retry. Find a Grave may throttle aggressive scraping.

The output is missing some fields.

Not all cemeteries have complete information on Find a Grave. Missing fields will be empty in the dataset.

How do I find the correct Country ID or State ID?

Go to Find a Grave's cemetery search page, select your country and state, and look at the URL parameters. The IDs are numeric values.

FAQ

Question	Answer
Do I need a Find a Grave account or API key?	No. The Actor reads the public website directly, so no login or key is required.
What is the maximum number of records I can scrape?	Free Apify users are limited to 100 records per run. Paid users can set any maximum up to 1,000,000.
Can I scrape a specific cemetery by URL?	Yes. Paste the full Find a Grave cemetery search or detail URL into the Start URL field, and the Actor will scrape exactly that page.
How do I filter by location?	Use the Country ID, State ID, County, and Post/ZIP Code fields. Country and state IDs follow Find a Grave's numbering, e.g. 4 for USA, 10 for UK.
What does the output look like?	Each cemetery is returned as a flat row with fields like name, address, GPS coordinates, and memorial count. You can export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.
Can I search by cemetery name only?	Yes. Enter a name in the Name or cemetery field, and the Actor will fetch search results and filter them by that name.
Is this legal?	You are responsible for complying with Find a Grave's terms of service and applicable laws. The Actor only accesses publicly available pages.
How fast can it scrape?	You can set Max Concurrency from 1 to 10 parallel requests. Higher concurrency is faster but may be rate-limited by the website.
Does it scrape individual grave memorials?	No, this Actor focuses on cemetery records, not individual memorials. For memorials, you would need a different scraper.
Can I get GPS coordinates?	Yes, when available on the cemetery's Find a Grave page, the GPS coordinates are included in the output.

Related actors

Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Ancestry.com Operations Inc. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.