Hale Collection of Connecticut Cemetery Records

Connecticut Cemetery Inscriptions and Records

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Charles R. Hale Collection of Connecticut Cemetery Inscriptions contains vital information from headstone inscriptions in over 2,000 Connecticut cemeteries that were recorded in a W.P.A. project directed by Charles R. Hale ca. 1932-5. These records are bound in volumes for each town and are indexed on slips in a single alphabetical file. Many cemeteries had been abandoned and long-forgotten when Mr. Hale began his research. For example, the town clerk in North Stonington knew of only nine cemeteries in the town; Mr. Hale found 95. He made house-to-house inquiries about old vaguely remembered plots, and then crawled through the woods to find them. He even located a cemetery under Route 9 in Middletown and several that had been flooded by reservoirs. In total 2,269 cemeteries came to light.

This website is a collection of cemeteries I have transcribed from the Hale Collection of Connecticut Cemetery Records as found in the Connecticut State Library. I have also linked to some of the cemeteries transcribed by various transcribers to help fill in the gaps and make this collection more complete.

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Connecticut Cemetery Records

New Horizons Genealogy has a nice selection of Cemetery records for New York and New England States. They also specialize in Old Cemetery records (pre 1940).

The Charles R. Hale Collection Numbering System

The Charles R. Hale Collection of Connecticut Cemetery Inscriptions, uses it's own unique numbering system. If you understand how this numbering system works, it can save you a lot of frustration. We are using this numbering system in this website.


Sample Hale Collection Cemetery Number

712-1


The first digit (7) is the county number. The Connecticut county numbers for the Charles R. Hale Collection are as follows.

In this example the county happens to be Middlesex County.

The second and third digits (12) is the town number. For each county the first town number reverts back to one. The town numbers for each county are some what, but not necessarily in alphabetical order. In this Example the second and third digits (12) happens to be Old Saybrook.

The number after the hyphen (1) which may be one or two digits, is the cemetery number. For each town the cemetery number always reverts back to the number one. In this example cemetery number one happens to be the number for the Cypress Cemetery.

In summery the cemetery number 712-1 tells us that this is Cypress Cemetery, located in the town of Old Saybrook, Middlesex County, Connecticut.

At hale-collection.com we are indexing all our cemetery records using this numbering system.

Other Connecticut Resources:

Other Collections From Neighboring States: