New Jersey Cemetery Records
This entry was originally written by Roger D. Joslyn, CG, FUGA, FGBS, FASG for Red Book: American State, County, and Town Sources.
The important work of grave marker transcribing has been the goal of the Genealogical Society of New Jersey (see New Jersey Archives, Libraries, and Societies), which was originally formed by 'Tombstone Hounds.' Their core collection is on deposit at Rutgers University, where there is a card index by county and name of the cemetery as well as a 'master index' arranged alphabetically by surname but only for selected cemeteries.
Many of the society's transcriptions have been published in its journal, The Genealogical Magazine of New Jersey, and the society has published (1994'2002) cemetery locators for Mercer, Morris, and Monmouth counties, compiled by Edward J. Raser.
Another large collection of cemetery records is that gathered by the New Jersey DAR chapters, with copies deposited at the New Jersey State Library and the Genealogical Society of New Jersey's collection at Rutgers University. Other collections are at the New Jersey Historical Society, the Gloucester County Historical Society, the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, and the New York Public Library. Some individual books of cemetery inscriptions have been published (such as the one for Whippany and Hanover, Morris County), and some are found in The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record. Some early burial records for Elizabeth's First Presbyterian Church were published in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 44 (1890): 264-69.
Many online cemetery transcriptions are organized here: New Jersey Cemetery Records
