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Find a Grave

April 12, 2024

Find a Grave is a website that allows the public to search and add to an online database of human and pet cemetery records. It is owned by Ancestry.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.com
CommercialYes
RegistrationOptional
Launched1998; 26 years ago (1998)
Current statusActive

History edit

20th century edit

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

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

21st century edit

The site later 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." In a September 30, 2013, 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 March 2017, a beta website for a redesigned Find a Grave was launched at gravestage.com. Between May 29 and 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.

In November 2017, the new site became live, and the old site was deprecated and officially retired the following year, on August 20, 2018.[2]

Content and features edit

The website contains listings of cemeteries and graves from around the world. American cemeteries are organized by state and county, and many cemetery records contain Google Maps (with GPS coordinates 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 for genealogical purposes. 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 for genealogy research.[20][21][22][23]

Find a Grave also maintains lists of memorials of famous persons by their "claim to fame", such as Medal of Honor recipients,[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 the United States.

Policies edit

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 edit

References edit

Citations edit

  1. ^ "Find a Grave". Find a Grave. Ancestry.com. from the original on May 11, 2020. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  2. ^ a b "Original Find A Grave (1995-2018)". Find a Grave. August 20, 2018. from the original on September 3, 2018. Retrieved September 3, 2018.
  3. ^ "Find a Grave member: Jim Tipton". Find a Grave. Ancestry.com. 2007. from the original on December 23, 2017. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
  4. ^ "Episode 13: Jim Tipton Founder of Find-A-Grave". Extreme Genes. extremegenes.com. 2013. Archived from the original on October 16, 2013. Retrieved October 16, 2013.
  5. ^ Maynard, Meleah (February 16, 2000). . City Pages. Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota: Star Tribune Media Company LLC. Archived from the original on September 28, 2012. Retrieved September 8, 2012.
  6. ^ . Utah Secretary of State. 1998. Archived from the original on January 19, 2012. Retrieved November 11, 2011.
  7. ^ . Utah Secretary of State. 2000. Archived from the original on April 6, 2012. Retrieved November 11, 2011.
  8. ^ . Delaware Department of State. 2000. Archived from the original on July 21, 2011. Retrieved November 11, 2011.
  9. ^ Silverman, Lauren (March 14, 2010). "Tracking Down Relatives, Visiting Graves Virtually". Washington, D.C.: National Public Radio. from the original on June 28, 2011. Retrieved September 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. from the original on December 23, 2017. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
  11. ^ "Ancestry.com Acquires Find A Grave". Ancestry.com. from the original on October 7, 2013. Retrieved October 1, 2013.
  12. ^ "Find A Grave – the same and yet different!". UpFront with NGS. National Genealogical Society. July 10, 2017. from the original on August 10, 2017. Retrieved August 10, 2017.
  13. ^ "Find A Grave Help". Find A Grave. Ancestry.com. from the original on December 18, 2017. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
  14. ^ Loudon, Bennett J. (September 2, 2011). "Civil War history carved in stone in Pittsford". Democrat and Chronicle. Gannett Company. from the original on September 18, 2020. Retrieved July 29, 2020.
  15. ^ Moody, Sharon Tate (January 24, 2010). "Find A Grave can shorten the search". The Tampa Tribune. Tampa Media Group. from the original on January 13, 2012. Retrieved December 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. from the original on December 23, 2017. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
  17. ^ "Family Members". from the original on June 4, 2023. Retrieved June 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. from the original on December 18, 2017. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
  20. ^ . Highlander.com. Parachute, CO. December 19, 2018. Archived from the original on December 2, 2020. Retrieved November 22, 2020.
  21. ^ "Searching the Cemetery: Find a Grave.com". Rutherford Public Library. Rutherford, NJ. from the original on October 16, 2021. Retrieved November 22, 2020.
  22. ^ Dickerson, Melissa (2016). 10 Tips for Searching the Find a Grave website for your family history & genealogy. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 978-1534710405. OCLC 967966290.
  23. ^ Pierre-Louis, Marian (July 11, 2015). "4 Ways to Research in a Cemetery". Legacy News Family Tree. from the original on April 15, 2021. Retrieved November 22, 2020.
  24. ^ "Claim to Fame: Medal of Honor Recipients". Find a Grave. Ancestry.com. from the original on December 23, 2017. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
  25. ^ "Claim to Fame: Religious figures". Find a Grave. Ancestry.com. from the original on December 23, 2017. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
  26. ^ "Claim to Fame: Educators". Find a Grave. Ancestry.com. from the original on December 23, 2017. Retrieved December 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. from the original on June 12, 2023. Retrieved June 12, 2023.
  29. ^ "Request to Manage". FindaGrave.com. Ancestry.com. from the original on July 25, 2022. Retrieved June 8, 2022.
  30. ^ Reid, Katie (August 25, 2019). "How Ancestry.com's Find A Grave Encourages Bad Actors and Bad Data". OneZero. Medium.com. from the original on May 19, 2022. Retrieved June 2, 2022.
  31. ^ Neill, Michael John (March 31, 2020). "FindAGrave Can Hold Off on the Recently Deceased". Rootdig.com (blog). from the original on September 27, 2022. Retrieved June 8, 2022.
  32. ^ "January 11, 2022 Find a Grave Team Memorials for the Recently Deceased". FindaGrave.com. Ancestry.com. January 11, 2022. from the original on June 2, 2022. Retrieved June 2, 2022.

Sources edit

  • Brandels, Gayle (October 21, 2020). "Some people visit cemeteries on Halloween. This man visits them all year to honor the dead he's never met". The Washington Post: Inspired Life. from the original on November 29, 2020. Retrieved November 22, 2020.
  • Cobbs, Chris (July 12, 2001). "Web site attracts millions of grave-seekers". Orlando Sentinel. Orlando, Florida: Tribune Publishing. Archived from the original on December 8, 2012. Retrieved September 28, 2011.
  • Colker, David (August 26, 1997). "Web site answers grave concerns about stars". Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles. from the original on October 8, 2018. Retrieved September 28, 2011.(subscription required)
  • Dehler, Tamie (October 13, 2007). . Tribune-Star. Terre Haute, Indiana: Community Newspaper Holdings. Archived from the original on May 14, 2011. Retrieved September 28, 2011.
  • Eveleth, Rose (August 28, 2014). "The Volunteers of FindaGrave.com: Cemetery-loving hobbyists have uploaded millions of photographs of headstones from all over the United States". The Atlantic. from the original on April 10, 2021. Retrieved November 22, 2020.
  • Gammage, Jeff (August 1, 2005). "Find VIPs (and others) who R.I.P. through online cemetery". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Media Network. Archived from the original on December 9, 2012. Retrieved September 28, 2011.
  • Johnstone, Nick (July 14, 2004). "Why I love ... findagrave.com". The Guardian. London. from the original on September 14, 2014. Retrieved September 28, 2011.
  • King, Peter (October 2, 2009). "Tip: Find a Grave has info you're dying to know". Newsday. Melville, New York: Cablevision. from the original on August 9, 2011. Retrieved September 28, 2011.(registration required)
  • Mendelsohn, Daniel (June 1, 2017). "Why Daniel Mendelsohn is Obsessed with Cemeteries". Town & Country. Hearst Magazine Media. from the original on November 29, 2020. Retrieved November 22, 2020.

External links edit

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Find A Grave.
  • Official website (in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, and Swedish)

April 12, 2024
find, grave, website, that, allows, public, search, online, database, human, cemetery, records, owned, ancestry, stated, mission, help, people, from, over, world, work, together, find, record, present, final, disposition, information, virtual, cemetery, experi. Find a Grave is a website that allows the public to search and add to an online database of human and pet cemetery records It is owned by Ancestry 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 update the site claimed more than 238 million memorials 1 Find a GraveType of siteOnline databaseAvailable inEnglishFrenchGermanSpanishItalianDutchPortugueseSwedishHeadquartersLehi Utah U S OwnersAncestry com 2013 present Founder s Jim TiptonURLwww wbr findagrave wbr comCommercialYesRegistrationOptionalLaunched1998 26 years ago 1998 Current statusActive Contents 1 History 1 1 20th century 1 2 21st century 2 Content and features 3 Policies 4 See also 5 References 5 1 Citations 5 2 Sources 6 External linksHistory edit20th century edit nbsp The logo of Find a Grave used from 1995 to 2018 2 The site was created in 1995 by Salt Lake City Utah resident Jim Tipton to support his hobby of visiting the burial sites of celebrities 3 Jim Tipton classified his early childhood a being a nerdy kid who had somewhat of a fascination with graves and some love for learning HTML 4 Tipton later added an online forum 5 Find a Grave was launched as a commercial entity in 1998 first as a trade name 6 and then incorporated in 2000 7 8 21st century edit The site later 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 In a September 30 2013 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 March 2017 a beta website for a redesigned Find a Grave was launched at gravestage com Between May 29 and 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 In November 2017 the new site became live and the old site was deprecated and officially retired the following year on August 20 2018 2 Content and features editThe website contains listings of cemeteries and graves from around the world American cemeteries are organized by state and county and many cemetery records contain Google Maps with GPS coordinates 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 for genealogical purposes 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 for genealogy research 20 21 22 23 Find a Grave also maintains lists of memorials of famous persons by their claim to fame such as Medal of Honor recipients 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 the United States Policies editWebsite 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 edit nbsp Internet portalCanadian Headstones Interment net Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness Tombstone tourist United States National Cemetery System s nationwide gravesite locatorReferences editCitations edit Find a Grave Find a Grave Ancestry com Archived from the original on May 11 2020 Retrieved January 2 2023 a b Original Find A Grave 1995 2018 Find a Grave August 20 2018 Archived from the original on September 3 2018 Retrieved September 3 2018 Find a Grave member Jim Tipton Find a Grave Ancestry com 2007 Archived from the original on December 23 2017 Retrieved December 22 2017 Episode 13 Jim Tipton Founder of Find A Grave Extreme Genes extremegenes com 2013 Archived from the original on October 16 2013 Retrieved October 16 2013 Maynard Meleah February 16 2000 Grave Matters Minnesota s dead are only a click away City Pages Minneapolis and Saint Paul Minnesota Star Tribune Media Company LLC Archived from the original on September 28 2012 Retrieved September 8 2012 Entity No 2442925 0151 Utah Secretary of State 1998 Archived from the original on January 19 2012 Retrieved November 11 2011 Entity No 4729413 0143 Utah Secretary of State 2000 Archived from the original on April 6 2012 Retrieved November 11 2011 Division of Corporations Entity File No 3168328 Delaware Department of State 2000 Archived from the original on July 21 2011 Retrieved November 11 2011 Silverman Lauren March 14 2010 Tracking Down Relatives Visiting Graves Virtually Washington D C National Public Radio Archived from the original on June 28 2011 Retrieved September 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 Find a Grave FAQ What can I include in a non famous bio Find a Grave Ancestry com Archived from the original on December 23 2017 Retrieved December 22 2017 Ancestry com Acquires Find A Grave Ancestry com Archived from the original on October 7 2013 Retrieved October 1 2013 Find A Grave the same and yet different UpFront with NGS National Genealogical Society July 10 2017 Archived from the original on August 10 2017 Retrieved August 10 2017 Find A Grave Help Find A Grave Ancestry com Archived from the original on December 18 2017 Retrieved December 22 2017 Loudon Bennett J September 2 2011 Civil War history carved in stone in Pittsford Democrat and Chronicle Gannett Company Archived from the original on September 18 2020 Retrieved July 29 2020 Moody Sharon Tate January 24 2010 Find A Grave can shorten the search The Tampa Tribune Tampa Media Group Archived from the original on January 13 2012 Retrieved December 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 Find A Grave member International Wargraves Photography Project Find a Grave Ancestry com Archived from the original on December 23 2017 Retrieved December 22 2017 Family Members Archived from the original on June 4 2023 Retrieved June 4 2023 Memorial Information Find a Grave Find A Grave Help How do I request a grave photo Find a Grave Ancestry com Archived from the original on December 18 2017 Retrieved December 22 2017 Find A Grave Cemetery Database Resources Highlander com Parachute CO December 19 2018 Archived from the original on December 2 2020 Retrieved November 22 2020 Searching the Cemetery Find a Grave com Rutherford Public Library Rutherford NJ Archived from the original on October 16 2021 Retrieved November 22 2020 Dickerson Melissa 2016 10 Tips for Searching the Find a Grave website for your family history amp genealogy CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform ISBN 978 1534710405 OCLC 967966290 Pierre Louis Marian July 11 2015 4 Ways to Research in a Cemetery Legacy News Family Tree Archived from the original on April 15 2021 Retrieved November 22 2020 Claim to Fame Medal of Honor Recipients Find a Grave Ancestry com Archived from the original on December 23 2017 Retrieved December 22 2017 Claim to Fame Religious figures Find a Grave Ancestry com Archived from the original on December 23 2017 Retrieved December 22 2017 Claim to Fame Educators Find a Grave Ancestry com Archived from the original on December 23 2017 Retrieved December 22 2017 What are the standards for a famous Bio Find a Grave Ancestry com Designate this person as a veteran Find A Grave Ancestry com Archived from the original on June 12 2023 Retrieved June 12 2023 Request to Manage FindaGrave com Ancestry com Archived from the original on July 25 2022 Retrieved June 8 2022 Reid Katie August 25 2019 How Ancestry com s Find A Grave Encourages Bad Actors and Bad Data OneZero Medium com Archived from the original on May 19 2022 Retrieved June 2 2022 Neill Michael John March 31 2020 FindAGrave Can Hold Off on the Recently Deceased Rootdig com blog Archived from the original on September 27 2022 Retrieved June 8 2022 January 11 2022 Find a Grave Team Memorials for the Recently Deceased FindaGrave com Ancestry com January 11 2022 Archived from the original on June 2 2022 Retrieved June 2 2022 Sources edit Brandels Gayle October 21 2020 Some people visit cemeteries on Halloween This man visits them all year to honor the dead he s never met The Washington Post Inspired Life Archived from the original on November 29 2020 Retrieved November 22 2020 Cobbs Chris July 12 2001 Web site attracts millions of grave seekers Orlando Sentinel Orlando Florida Tribune Publishing Archived from the original on December 8 2012 Retrieved September 28 2011 Colker David August 26 1997 Web site answers grave concerns about stars Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Archived from the original on October 8 2018 Retrieved September 28 2011 subscription required Dehler Tamie October 13 2007 Genealogy Find a Grave tremendous on many different levels Tribune Star Terre Haute Indiana Community Newspaper Holdings Archived from the original on May 14 2011 Retrieved September 28 2011 Eveleth Rose August 28 2014 The Volunteers of FindaGrave com Cemetery loving hobbyists have uploaded millions of photographs of headstones from all over the United States The Atlantic Archived from the original on April 10 2021 Retrieved November 22 2020 Gammage Jeff August 1 2005 Find VIPs and others who R I P through online cemetery The Philadelphia Inquirer Philadelphia Philadelphia Media Network Archived from the original on December 9 2012 Retrieved September 28 2011 Johnstone Nick July 14 2004 Why I love findagrave com The Guardian London Archived from the original on September 14 2014 Retrieved September 28 2011 King Peter October 2 2009 Tip Find a Grave has info you re dying to know Newsday Melville New York Cablevision Archived from the original on August 9 2011 Retrieved September 28 2011 registration required Mendelsohn Daniel June 1 2017 Why Daniel Mendelsohn is Obsessed with Cemeteries Town amp Country Hearst Magazine Media Archived from the original on November 29 2020 Retrieved November 22 2020 External links edit nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to Find 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 amp oldid 1213552917, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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