Find a Grave can be a treasure trove for family historians. What started in 1995 to capture the data from one man’s hobby became the repository of information for 180 million memorials by 2020. The site has been owned by Ancestry.com since 2013.[1]
Find a Grave relies on volunteers who photograph cemetery markers or use other information and create memorials. A memorial with a photograph of the marker can provide valuable information for genealogists and can lead to original documents concerning the life of the individual.
Find a Grave announced important policy changes affecting the recently deceased and how the relationship between the subject of the memorial and the memorial manager are handled. As of 11 January 2022, all memorials for the recently deceased (defined as within the previous 3 months) will provide limited information. A new button allows relatives to quickly become the manager the memorial. The button will be visible for a year.
Another new feature is adding your relationship to memorials you manage. This information can be public or private. If you are a member of Find a Grave, click on your profile in the upper right of the website and choose “My Memorials.” This brings up a list of memorials you manage. Choose a memorial, then click on “Edit.” Scroll down to the bottom of the edit pane to the question “Are you a close relative?” When you click “Yes,” the dialogue box expands and you can indicate your relationship and privacy settings. If you’d like your relationship to remain private, unclick “Show relationship in source information.”
The transfer guidelines for memorials were also updated. Close relatives are defined and are given preference for managing the memorial. To request a transfer, click on “Suggest Edits” on the memorial, scroll down to “Suggest other corrections” and then write a message to the memorial manager, providing them with your relationship to the person. Remember, you do not need to be the manager to add photos or suggest edits to the page.
Thanks to FindAGrave for making these important changes.
[1] Wikipedia, “Find a Grave,” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Find_a_Grave : accessed 24 January 2022).