Wayland Township has announced the addition of an online burial search of its cemeteries to its website, include West and East Elmwood, Germond and Hill cemeteries.

To find someone in the burial, enter a surname and a first name, if known. The result may provide the year of birth, date of death and burial, age at death and cemetery.  Other features can include parent’s names, children, siblings, funeral home, type of burial and an obituary or note of where an obituary can be found.

The cemetery will be named, what addition, lot number and grave number, and a map will indicate the location.

Township burial records have been recorded in three ledger books for many years. The records included name of the deceased, date of death and age, and cemetery with lot and grave number.

“ It was time to bring the records up to date,” said Sexton/Township Clerk Ann McInerny. “Each record was manually entered into a database and then added to a software program purchased by the township.

“Then the work really began.  Each burial was researched for birth date, family members or any other information that might be informative. There are currently over 6,000 burials in the database.”

The sexton added that a big part of this project was platting the oldest sections of West Elmwood, Germond and Hill cemeteries. Platting required locating ground markers in rows and columns to identify burial lots and number of graves. Tombstones aided in establishing burials and possible other family members, not having tombstones in the same lot.

“A time-consuming and research driven endeavor has resulted in a most worthwhile project,” she concluded.

The Online Burial Search can be found on waytwp.org under the cemetery tab.