Find a Grave - Wikipedia

Find a Grave - Wikipedia
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Online database of cemetery records
Find a Grave
Type of site
Online database
Available in
French
German
Spanish
Italian
Dutch
Portuguese
Swedish
Japanese
Danish
Finnish
Norwegian
Polish
Headquarters
Lehi, Utah
, U.S.
Owners
Ancestry.com
(2013–present)
Founder
Jim Tipton
URL
www
.findagrave
.com
Commercial
Yes
Registration
Optional
Launched
1998
; 28 years ago
1998
Current status
Active
Find a Grave
is a collaborative 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." Users 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 250 million memorials.
History
edit
Early history
edit
The logo of Find a Grave used from 1995 to 2018
Find a Grave was created in 1995 by Jim Tipton of
Salt Lake City, Utah
, to support his hobby of visiting the burial sites of famous celebrities.
Tipton described his early childhood as a nerdy kid with a fascination for graves, and an interest in
HTML
He later added an
online forum
Find a Grave was launched as a commercial entity in 1998, first as a
trade name
and then incorporated in 2000.
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.
10
As part of Ancestry.com
edit
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 the following year.
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 memorial, but may transfer management to another member. Management may also be transferred if a manager’s account meets certain criteria for inactivity. Only the current manager of a memorial may edit it directly, but there is a process for other members’ edits to be accepted and incorporated. Managers may add links to memorials of deceased spouses and parents for
genealogical
purposes. According to these links, links to memorials will automatically appear on the appropriate pages as children and siblings.
17
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.
18
The website is often recommended as a resource for
genealogy research
19
20
21
22
Find a Grave also maintains lists of memorials of famous persons by their "claim to fame", such as
Medal of Honor
recipients,
23
religious figures,
24
and educators.
25
Find a Grave exercises editorial control over these listings.
26
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
27
differs from that used in many countries, including the
United States
citation needed
Policies
edit
Website policy is to remove memorials or transfer their management at the request of an immediate family member.
28
In January 2022, following complaints, Find a Grave announced a new policy for memorials of recently deceased persons.
29
Under the new policy, any photos or personal information, including obituaries, are hidden for three months.
30
31
See also
edit
Internet portal
Canadian Headstones
Interment.net
Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness
Tombstone tourist
United States National Cemetery System
's nationwide gravesite locator
References
edit
Citations
edit
"Find a Grave"
Find a Grave
. Ancestry.com.
Archived
from the original on May 11, 2020
. Retrieved
January 2,
2023
"Original Find A Grave (1995-2018)"
Find a Grave
. August 20, 2018.
Archived
from the original on September 3, 2018
. Retrieved
September 3,
2018
"Member Profile: Jim Tipton"
Find a Grave
Ancestry.com
Archived
from the original on December 23, 2017
. Retrieved
December 22,
2017
"Episode 13 – Jim Tipton, Founder of Find-A-Grave, On Its Beginnings"
Extreme Genes
. October 16, 2013. Archived from
the original
on August 12, 2022
. 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
"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 & 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
. Retrieved
September 28,
2011
{{
cite news
}}
: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (
link
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
. Retrieved
September 28,
2011
{{
cite news
}}
: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (
link
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 & Country
. Hearst Magazine Media.
Archived
from the original on November 29, 2020
. Retrieved
November 22,
2020
External links
edit
Wikimedia Commons has media related to
Find A Grave
Wikidata
has the property:
Find a Grave memorial ID (P535)
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Categories
1995 establishments in Utah
2013 mergers and acquisitions
Acknowledgements of death
American genealogy websites
Cemeteries
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Internet properties established in 1995
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