A free service 15 years in the making is now available for Washington residents.

The City of Washington announced this week that their online cemetery burial search is now available for use. Cemetery Sexton Nick Duvall has put in the time over his 10-year tenure to enter the cemetery records for the Elm Grove and Woodlawn cemeteries, some dating back to 1887, “Just in the last couple years we’ve gotten to the point where we’ve got enough data in that, where we thought it was time that we put it online so that people could search and find relatives. It’s a really good source for genealogy.”

On the site you can search for someone by last name, first name, year of burial, or veteran status. Once located you can read the information the city has for the individual, print their record, and see a map location of the burial plot. Duvall asks for the public’s patience as the city continues to add information to the database. Only Elm Grove records are available at this time. Duvall also encourages the public to contact him at nduvall@washingtoniowa.gov with spelling and other corrections. For a link to the site, visit here.