Choosing a Funeral Home, Mortuary or Crematory in the US for a Funeral or Cremation Service

US Funerals Online’s directory of funeral homes and cremation providers in the U.S. has been designed to help all visitors find local funeral and cremation services in their own cities.  Use the search below to find a location near you.

We can also help you find affordable local cremation services by highlighting a location near you that offers a low-cost direct cremation service, disclosing the cremation price, and providing quick contact details for you to connect.

Visit our Funeral Resources Section for Funeral & Cremation Planning Guides for each State.

Our directory provides an entirely FREE listing to ALL funeral and cremation businesses in the U.S.  This means that no business is excluded just because they have not paid us an inclusion fee. 

If you should find that a funeral business listing is missing or incorrect, please submit these details to us so that we can verify the information and correct the listing.

If you have arrived at US Funerals Online but are specifically searching for a low-cost funeral or cremation provider, you may wish to visit our sister site, DFS Memorials, where we list the local, family-owned funeral homes that specialize in offering low-cost direct cremations and direct burials.

The associations and organizations listed below are the key funeral industry bodies that support, educate, and help regulate funeral professionals and funeral homes, cremation, and cemetery establishments across the U.S.

National Funeral Directors Association  – The NFDA is the largest funeral association in the US.  The association is based in Brookfield, Wisconsin, and has been operating for over 120 years.

Selected Independent Funeral Homes  – Membership is now over 1500 independent funeral homes.  The association has been operating since 1917, representing Selected Morticians throughout the states.

International Cemetery, Cremation & Funeral Association  – ICCFA was founded in 1887 and is the only international trade association to represent all sectors of the cemetery, funeral service, cremation, and memorialization industries.

National Funeral Directors & Morticians Association  –  The NFDMA is a funeral association of African-American funeral directors.  The association is based in Georgia but has chapters around the U.S., the Caribbean, and South Africa.

Did You Know?

Origins of the term ‘funeral home’

The funeral home as we know it today emerged after the Civil War when the process of embalming came into general practice.  Many funeral homes were known during the late 18th – early 19th century as ‘funeral parlors’.  The reason for this is that during this period, the deceased was traditionally laid out to rest in the family home in the parlor. 

Throughout the late 19th century, the practice of embalming became commonplace, and this resulted in more businesses opening up to offer this ‘trade.’  The ritual of caring for our deceased passed from the family home to the funeral home.

The word ‘mortuary’ originates from the Latin ‘mortuarium,’ meaning receptacle for dead things.  It is today commonly understood to be ‘a place, especially a funeral home, where dead bodies are kept before burial or cremation.‘  The use of the word mortuary was first recorded in 1865, replacing the coined term at this time of ‘deadhouse’. 

The term ‘morgue’ is closely linked to our notions of a mortuary, and both terms can be used interchangeably.  Morgue has its origins in the French language.  Morgue is more generally used in North American English, whilst mortuary is more common in British English to refer to temporary refrigerated storage for the deceased.  A mortuary can also commonly be a funeral home.  Interestingly, mortuary is more often found in funeral home names on the West Coast of the United States.

The term undertaker is rarely used these days (apart from in the world of wrestling) but was used as the common term originating around the 17th century to describe the profession of a person who prepared the dead for burial, and in the ‘Wild West’ sense, also built the coffin. 

U.S. Funeral Industry

The death care industry in the U.S. alone is valued at around $15 billion.  There are in the region of 19,000 funeral homes, funeral parlors, and mortuaries.  There are also approximately 115,000 cemeteries and Memorial Gardens and 1,700 crematories. 

We would anticipate that the number of funeral homes in the U.S. will decline over the coming years as the cremation rate increases. Likewise, we are likely to see the number of crematories increase. 

Rather than the once clear distinction between funeral home, cemetery, and crematory, we are likely to see these services amalgamate.  Currently, there are at least 1,000 combination funeral homes and cemeteries in the U.S. funeral market, and around $25 billion is held in trust funds pursuant to preneed arrangements.

Did you know? 

According to the Property & Environment Research Center (PERC) – Each year, the U.S. buries:

• Enough embalming fluid (a known carcinogen) to fill 8 Olympic-sized swimming pools
• More steel than was used to build the Golden Gate Bridge
• And so much reinforced concrete that a two-lane freeway could be constructed from New York to Detroit.