Wikipedia

Find a Grave

Find a Graveis a website that allows the public to search and add to an onlinedatabaseof human and pet cemetery records. It is owned byAncestry.com.Its stated mission is "to help people from all over the world work together to find, record and present final disposition information as a virtual cemetery experience." Volunteers can create memorials, upload photos of grave markers or deceased persons, transcribe photos of headstones, and more. As of 2024,the site claimed more than 238 million memorials.[1]

Find a Grave
Type of site
Online database
Available inEnglish
French
German
Spanish
Italian
Dutch
Portuguese
Swedish
HeadquartersLehi, Utah,U.S.
OwnersAncestry.com(2013–present)
Founder(s)Jim Tipton
URLwww.findagrave.comEdit this at Wikidata
CommercialYes
RegistrationOptional
Launched1998;26 years ago(1998)
Current statusActive

History

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1995–2009

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The logo of Find a Grave used from 1995 to 2018[2]

Find a Grave was created in 1995 bySalt Lake City, Utah,resident Jim Tipton to support his hobby of visiting the burial sites of famous celebrities.[3]Tipton classified his early childhood as being a nerdy kid who had somewhat of a fascination with graves and some love for learning HTML.[4]He later added anonline forum.[5]Find a Grave was launched as a commercial entity in 1998, first as atrade name[6]and then incorporated in 2000.[7][8]

2010–present

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In 2010, Find a Grave expanded to include graves of non-celebrities, in order to allow online visitors to pay respect to their deceased relatives or friends.[9][10]

In 2013, Tipton sold Find a Grave to Ancestry.com, stating the genealogy company had "been linking and driving traffic to the site for several years. Burial information is a wonderful source for people researching their family history." According to a press release, Ancestry.com officials said they would "launch a new mobile app, improve customer support, [and] introduce an enhanced edit system for submitting updates to memorials, foreign-language support, and other site improvements."[11]

In 2017, a beta website for a redesigned Find a Grave was launched at gravestage.com. From May 29 to July 10 of that year, the beta website was migrated to new.findagrave.com,[12]and a new front end for it was deployed at beta.findagrave.com. The new site became live at the end of the year, and the old site was deprecated and officially retired in 2018 the following year.[2]

Content and features

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The website contains listings of cemeteries and graves from around the world. American cemeteries are organized by state and county, and many cemetery records containGoogle Maps(withGPScoordinates supplied by contributors) and photographs of the cemeteries and gravesites. Individual grave records may contain dates and places of birth and death, biographical information, cemetery and plot information, photographs (of the grave marker, the individual, etc.), and contributor information.[13]

Interment listings are added by individuals,[14]genealogical societies,[15]cemetery associations, and other institutions such as the International Wargraves Photography Project.[16]

Contributors must register as members to submit listings, called memorials, on the site. The submitter becomes the manager of the listing, but may transfer management. Only the current manager of a listing may edit it, although any member may use the site's features to send correction requests to the listing's manager. Managers may add links to memorials of deceased spouses and parents forgenealogicalpurposes. Deceased children's memorials that are linked to their parents' memorials will appear on the parents' memorials as their children. They will also appear as siblings of other deceased children whose memorials have been linked to the same parents.[17]Links to external websites and email addresses are not allowed.[18]

Any member may also add photographs and notations to individual listings; notations may include images of flowers, flags, religious, or other symbols, and often include a message of sympathy or condolence. Members may post requests for photos of a specific grave; these requests will be automatically sent to other members who have registered their location as being near that grave.[19]

The website is often recommended as a resource forgenealogy research.[20][21][22][23]

Find a Grave also maintains lists of memorials of famous persons by their "claim to fame", such asMedal of Honorrecipients,[24]religious figures,[25]and educators.[26]Find a Grave exercises editorial control over these listings.[27]

Starting on May 18, 2023, memorials may also be marked with a "Veteran" tag but the definition of the term Veteran used by Find A Grave[28]differs from that used in many countries, including theUnited States.

Policies

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Website policy is to remove memorials or transfer their management at the request of an immediate family member.[29]In January 2022, following complaints, Find a Grave announced a new policy for memorials of recently deceased persons.[30]Under the new policy, any photos or personal information, including obituaries, are hidden for three months.[31][32]

See also

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References

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Citations

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  1. ^"Find a Grave".Find a Grave.Ancestry.com.Archivedfrom the original on May 11, 2020.RetrievedJanuary 2,2023.
  2. ^ab"Original Find A Grave (1995-2018)".Find a Grave.August 20, 2018.Archivedfrom the original on September 3, 2018.RetrievedSeptember 3,2018.
  3. ^"Find a Grave member: Jim Tipton".Find a Grave.Ancestry.com.2007.Archivedfrom the original on December 23, 2017.RetrievedDecember 22,2017.
  4. ^"Episode 13: Jim Tipton Founder of Find-A-Grave".Extreme Genes.extremegenes.com.2013. Archived from the original on August 12, 2022.RetrievedOctober 16,2013.{{cite web}}:CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  5. ^Maynard, Meleah (February 16, 2000)."Grave Matters: Minnesota's dead are only a click away".City Pages.MinneapolisandSaint Paul, Minnesota:Star Tribune Media Company LLC. Archived fromthe originalon September 28, 2012.RetrievedSeptember 8,2012.
  6. ^"Entity No. 2442925-0151".Utah Secretary of State. 1998. Archived fromthe originalon January 19, 2012.RetrievedNovember 11,2011.
  7. ^"Entity No. 4729413-0143".Utah Secretary of State. 2000. Archived fromthe originalon April 6, 2012.RetrievedNovember 11,2011.
  8. ^"Division of Corporations Entity File No. 3168328".Delaware Department of State. 2000. Archived fromthe originalon July 21, 2011.RetrievedNovember 11,2011.
  9. ^Silverman, Lauren (March 14, 2010)."Tracking Down Relatives, Visiting Graves Virtually".Washington, D.C.:National Public Radio.Archivedfrom the original on June 28, 2011.RetrievedSeptember 28,2011."At some point, I said, 'I am sick of drawing the lines of who is famous and who isn't. I'm just going to accept everyone,'" Tipton says.
  10. ^"Find a Grave FAQ: What can I include in a non-famous bio?".Find a Grave.Ancestry.com.Archivedfrom the original on December 23, 2017.RetrievedDecember 22,2017.
  11. ^"Ancestry.com Acquires Find A Grave".Ancestry.com.Archivedfrom the original on October 7, 2013.RetrievedOctober 1,2013.
  12. ^"Find A Grave – the same and yet different!".UpFront with NGS.National Genealogical Society.July 10, 2017.Archivedfrom the original on August 10, 2017.RetrievedAugust 10,2017.
  13. ^"Find A Grave Help".Find A Grave.Ancestry.com.Archivedfrom the original on December 18, 2017.RetrievedDecember 22,2017.
  14. ^Loudon, Bennett J. (September 2, 2011)."Civil War history carved in stone in Pittsford".Democrat and Chronicle.Gannett Company.Archivedfrom the original on September 18, 2020.RetrievedJuly 29,2020.
  15. ^Moody, Sharon Tate (January 24, 2010)."Find A Grave can shorten the search".The Tampa Tribune.Tampa Media Group.Archivedfrom the original on January 13, 2012.RetrievedDecember 28,2011.The entries with tombstone photographs obviously are reliable, but if the entry is based only on a paper record of the interment (without a photograph), it's easy to mistype the date, so you're bound to find errors.
  16. ^"Find A Grave member: International Wargraves Photography Project".Find a Grave.Ancestry.com.Archivedfrom the original on December 23, 2017.RetrievedDecember 22,2017.
  17. ^"Family Members".Archivedfrom the original on June 4, 2023.RetrievedJune 4,2023.
  18. ^"Memorial Information".Find a Grave.
  19. ^"Find A Grave Help: How do I request a grave photo?".Find a Grave.Ancestry.com.Archivedfrom the original on December 18, 2017.RetrievedDecember 22,2017.
  20. ^"'Find A Grave' Cemetery Database Resources ".Highlander.com.Parachute, CO. December 19, 2018. Archived fromthe originalon December 2, 2020.RetrievedNovember 22,2020.
  21. ^"Searching the Cemetery: Find a Grave.com".Rutherford Public Library.Rutherford, NJ.Archivedfrom the original on October 16, 2021.RetrievedNovember 22,2020.
  22. ^Dickerson, Melissa (2016).10 Tips for Searching the Find a Grave website for your family history & genealogy.CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.ISBN978-1534710405.OCLC967966290.
  23. ^Pierre-Louis, Marian (July 11, 2015)."4 Ways to Research in a Cemetery".Legacy News Family Tree.Archivedfrom the original on April 15, 2021.RetrievedNovember 22,2020.
  24. ^"Claim to Fame: Medal of Honor Recipients".Find a Grave.Ancestry.com.Archivedfrom the original on December 23, 2017.RetrievedDecember 22,2017.
  25. ^"Claim to Fame: Religious figures".Find a Grave.Ancestry.com.Archivedfrom the original on December 23, 2017.RetrievedDecember 22,2017.
  26. ^"Claim to Fame: Educators".Find a Grave.Ancestry.com.Archivedfrom the original on December 23, 2017.RetrievedDecember 22,2017.
  27. ^"What are the standards for a famous Bio?".Find a Grave.Ancestry.com.
  28. ^"Designate this person as a veteran".Find A Grave.Ancestry.com.Archivedfrom the original on June 12, 2023.RetrievedJune 12,2023.
  29. ^"Request to Manage".FindaGrave.com.Ancestry.com.Archivedfrom the original on July 25, 2022.RetrievedJune 8,2022.
  30. ^Reid, Katie (August 25, 2019)."How Ancestry.com's Find A Grave Encourages Bad Actors and Bad Data".OneZero.Medium.com.Archivedfrom the original on May 19, 2022.RetrievedJune 2,2022.
  31. ^Neill, Michael John (March 31, 2020)."FindAGrave Can Hold Off on the Recently Deceased".Rootdig.com (blog).Archivedfrom the original on September 27, 2022.RetrievedJune 8,2022.
  32. ^"January 11, 2022 Find a Grave Team Memorials for the Recently Deceased".FindaGrave.com.Ancestry.com. January 11, 2022.Archivedfrom the original on June 2, 2022.RetrievedJune 2,2022.

Sources

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Wikimedia Commons has media related toFind A Grave.
  • Official website(in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, and Swedish)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Find_a_Grave&oldid=1228197014"