Methodology, sources, and where each claim on this site comes from.

Funeral home listings

A funeral home appears in this directory when at least one of the following has been confirmed:

1. The home's keyword set includes veterans_military_honors or veterans_cemetery_section in our enrichment record. These flags are assigned during a structured enrichment pass over the home's public marketing materials, services lists, and facility descriptions.
2. Our enrichment scan has identified a populated veteran_services field — free-text descriptions of the home's military funeral honors coordination, VA benefits assistance, dedicated veterans cemetery sections, or related services.
3. A family has reported a successful military funeral honors detail conducted in partnership with the home, and the report has been verified against publicly-available evidence.

Pricing data is taken from the home's published General Price List (GPL) where available. Federal law (FTC Funeral Rule, 16 CFR Part 453) requires every funeral home to provide an itemized GPL when contacted in person or by phone. Some homes also post their GPLs publicly; we include those amounts on the home's page where they appear. Where no GPL is published, we display a note to that effect rather than omitting the section entirely.

Family reviews are sourced from Google Places. We do not edit, filter, or rewrite reviews. We sort vet-relevant reviews (mentioning veterans, military, service, honor, flag, or cemetery) above general reviews to surface the audience-relevant signal first.

Cemetery listings

The 331 veteran cemeteries listed here are sourced from the National Cemetery Administration's published cemetery roster, supplemented by state veterans affairs department listings for state-operated cemeteries and the Bureau of Indian Affairs listings for tribal-operated cemeteries.

For each VA national cemetery linked to a page on cem.va.gov, our enrichment scrape extracts the cemetery's history, notable interments, hours, eligibility specifics, floral and grounds policies, weapons policy, and educational programs from the official source. The scrape is rerun periodically; the timestamp on each cemetery page indicates when the page was last enriched.

State and tribal cemeteries that do not have cem.va.gov pages display the prior shorter detail page with cemetery type, current burial availability, and contact information from our seed data.

Benefit amounts

All dollar amounts are sourced from the most recent VA fact sheet (38 CFR 3.1700–3.1730) and the Veterans Benefits Administration's published guidance. The standard burial allowance ($948 for non-service-connected death; up to $2,000 for service-connected) is adjusted annually based on the Consumer Price Index. Where amounts have been superseded, we update the site within 30 days of the VA's publication.

For burial-benefit eligibility specifics — particularly contested cases involving character of discharge, Reserve and National Guard service, divorced or remarried surviving spouses, and tribal-enrollment cases — we cite the relevant section of 38 CFR inline. Where the regulation is ambiguous, we recommend the family consult a Veterans Service Officer (VSO) at the local VFW or American Legion.

Editorial articles

The articles in The Veteran Funerals Journal are composed by our editorial team from primary-source materials: the Code of Federal Regulations (specifically Title 38, Parts 3 and 38), the U.S. Code (Title 38, Chapters 23 and 24), VA fact sheets, VA forms (21P-530EZ, 40-1330, 40-0247, 27-2008), and the operating procedures published by the National Cemetery Scheduling Office and the DoD Honors Coordination Office.

Articles are written by the VeteranFunerals Editorial team. As of this writing, no single named reviewer with VA-accredited claims agent credentials has signed off on the articles individually. We are working on adding a named reviewer in the next 60 days and will update each article's byline accordingly.

Map and geocoding

The interactive map at /map uses tile data from OpenFreeMap (vector tiles, free, no API key) layered over OpenStreetMap contributor data. Geocoding for ZIP code and city/state lookup uses the SimpleMaps US Cities and US ZIP Codes datasets.

Browser geolocation is requested when you visit /map. Permission is requested via the standard browser API; we do not store or transmit your location. The location data is used only to fly the map to your coordinates and is discarded when the page is closed.

Corrections and updates

Errors, omissions, and stale information are inevitable in any directory of this scale. We welcome corrections via the contact page. For substantive factual corrections to a specific page, please include the URL and the specific fact you believe is incorrect, with a source citation if possible.