Originally, family plots were bits of land set aside on a family's land on which they set up their own personal graveyard. This has fallen out of fashion, in large part because the laws around starting and maintaining a graveyard are becoming increasingly nitpicky. Private graveyards certainly still exist, and in America it is not uncommon to find abandoned or poorly-maintained private plots in woods and fields.

These days, a family plot is simply a large plot purchased in an established graveyard with the expectation that multiple members of your family will want to be buried near each other. They often have a headstone for the plot as a whole, along with individual gravestones for each family member interred there.

123