Burr Oak Cemetery: Browse the headstones

By Ryan Mark, Joe Germuska and Brian Boyer
July 30, 2009

As many as 300 graves at Burr Oak Cemetery near Alsip may have been dug up and the remains dumped so the plots could be resold. To help families search for their loved ones' graves, the Cook County Sheriff's office is building a database so families can search for images of headstones.

Burr Oak has about 100,000 grave sites, but only half have marked headstones. County officials have documented all 50,000 headstones and they all should be entered into the database over the next several days. So far, the database features about 9,500 sites. Families should check back regularly for updates.

This application allows you to search the sheriff's database by name, and browse by decade and year. As the sheriff's office releases more images, the data in this application will be updated.

(Please note: Because of inconsistent data from the sheriff's office, the names and dates on the headstones may not always match the descriptions.)