A free webinar will take place, on Thursday, Nov. 18, 2021 at 6:30 p.m., “On Hart Island: Past, Present, Future.”
The presenter will be Melinda Hunt, president of the Hart Island Project. She will share historical documents, videos and testimonies about this municipal burial place.
The cemetery on Hart Island occupies 131 acres and serves as the City’s public cemetery. There are over one million New Yorkers buried on the island. Individuals are buried on Hart Island because their identity is unknown at the time of their death, next of kin could not be located to arrange for burial services or because the individual’s family could not afford burial costs.
Until 2014 graves were inaccessible to families of those buried on the island.
To search the burial index created by the Hart Island Project, go to: https://www.hartisland.net/burial_records/search
The NYC Department of Corrections has created a searchable database of Hart Island burial records dating back to 1977, which enables members of the public to determine if a loved is buried on the island. Records dated before 1977 are preserved by the New York City Municipal Archives, a division of the New York City Department of Records and Information Services.
To search the burial index, go to: https://a073-hartisland-web.nyc.gov/hartisland/pages/home/home.jsf
To find out more about the Hart Island Project, go to: https://www.hartisland.net/
