Options for Ashes After Cremation: What Families in Indiana and Kentucky Can Do

No. Neither Indiana nor Kentucky sets a deadline for a family to decide what to do with ashes once they're in your care. Indiana law says ashes "may be retained by the person having legal control over the remains," and Kentucky places no time limit on the person who receives them.

Picking up the ashes and deciding what to do with them are two separate steps. We'll let you know when your family member's ashes are ready and ask you to collect them soon after. What happens next can wait as long as you need.

Plenty of families take them home in the temporary container and decide months, or years, later. That's normal.

When you come in, we sit down with you at a table in one of our arrangement rooms and go through everything. Here's what you'll leave with:

💡 Keep the paperwork with the ashes. If it ever goes missing, call us, because we keep records and can recreate the paperwork we issued.

Ashes go in an urn, a keepsake urn, a piece of cremation jewelry, or the temporary container that comes with every cremation. The temporary container is fine for keeping ashes at home, for scattering, and for many burials. You don't need to buy anything until you know where the ashes will end up.

That's the order we suggest: decide the final resting place first, then choose the container. The place often decides the container for you.

The funeral industry's rule of thumb is one cubic inch of urn capacity for every pound of body weight before cremation. A person who weighed 200 pounds needs an urn that holds at least approximately 200 cubic inches.

💡 Note: An urn can be bigger than it needs to be, but never smaller. Some families will choose to tuck a letter or a photo inside.

Yes. Both states allow ashes to be placed in a grave, a crypt, or a niche. A columbarium is a structure built to hold urns in individual niches, usually at a cemetery. Each cemetery sets its own rules and fees.

Many do, especially larger, corporate-owned cemeteries. Smaller community and church cemeteries often don't. If the person was a veteran, ask about a state or national veterans cemetery, since their rules and costs are different. In Kentucky, check one thing first. The Kentucky Department of Veterans Affairs says that if you apply for and receive the National Cemetery Administration's commemorative urn and plaque, you lose eligibility for burial in Kentucky's five state veterans cemeteries.

Ask before you buy. A vault is an extra cost, and we'd rather you not pay for one a cemetery doesn't require.

Often, yes. Say Mom and Dad are buried in a family plot, and their son passes away and is cremated years later. Many cemeteries will place his urn in the same grave, on top of the existing burial vault.

Call the cemetery first. Expect an opening and closing fee for digging the space. Some cemeteries, mostly the larger ones, also charge a second right of interment fee for adding someone to a grave that's already in use. Ask about both before you plan the day.

Indiana law allows scattering on a waterway, on uninhabited public land, or on the property of a consenting owner, as long as the ashes are reduced to one-eighth of an inch or less. Kentucky allows scattering on private property with the owner's consent and in a cemetery's designated scattering area. Kentucky's law doesn't mention rivers or lakes at all.

If you live along the Ohio River, which side you scatter on changes the answer.

A few things families often get wrong:

National parks need a permit, or a spot the superintendent has set aside. Nearby parks like Mammoth Cave issue that permit free and set distances in feet from trails and water. The often-quoted "100 yards" comes from federal permit language, and the actual number changes from one property to the next.

Yes, both. We divide ashes among family members whenever a family asks, and we fill urns and keepsakes for you so nobody has to do it at the kitchen table. Combining two people's ashes is possible too, but it's permanent, so we handle it carefully.

Tell us when you make arrangements, or any time before pickup. We typically fill up to six urns or keepsakes at no extra charge. If two or three children each want a share in a temporary container, that's no charge either.

Very large requests, like dozens of tiny keepsakes, take a lot of staff time. If filling everything will take more than about half an hour, we'll talk with you about a charge before we start.

Some families want two people together. Spouses are the most common. A companion urn holds two sets of ashes, and we recommend keeping each person in their own bag inside it. They're together, and each one stays identifiable.

If your family wants the ashes physically mixed, write that request on the cremation authorization form. We confirm it again with you in person at pickup before we combine anything, because it can't be undone.

Someone in the family has to receive the ashes, but nobody has to keep them at home. If one sibling wants the urn and another doesn't, that's a complete answer. Not wanting ashes in your house doesn't mean you loved the person any less.

In our experience, too many people wanting a share is a more common problem than nobody wanting one. Dividing usually solves it. The person with legal authority over the ashes decides who receives a portion, and we follow their instructions. Sometimes a caregiver or close friend asks for a share. We can only provide one with that person's approval.

If no one wants to keep them, scattering or a cemetery niche are both good answers. The cost of the cremation is the same either way.