Find a Grave

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Find A Grave is a website that allows the public to search and add to an online database of cemetery records. It is owned by Ancestry.com. It receives and uploads digital photographs of headstones from burial sites, taken by unpaid volunteers at cemeteries. Find A Grave then posts the photo on its website.

Video Find a Grave

History

The site was created in 1995 by Salt Lake City resident Alma, Michigan-born Jim Tipton to support his hobby of visiting the burial sites of famous celebrities. 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. 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.

In 2013, Tipton sold Find A Grave to Ancestry.com, saying that 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."

As of October 2017, Find A Grave contained over 165 million burial records and 75 million photos.

In March 2017, a beta website for a redesigned Find A Grave was launched, gravestage.com. Public feedback has been mixed. Sometime between May 29 and July 10 of that year, the beta website was migrated to new.findagrave.com, 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 moved to old.findagrave.com

Maps Find a Grave

Content and features

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.

Interment listings are added by individuals, genealogical societies, and other institutions such as the International Wargraves Photography Project.

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 other listings of deceased spouses, parents, and siblings for genealogical purposes.

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.

Although it does not ask permission from immediate family members before uploading the photos, it will remove and take down photos or a URL for a deceased loved one at the request of an immediate family member.

Find A Grave also maintains lists of memorials of famous persons by their "claim to fame", such as Medal of Honor recipients, religious figures, and educators. Find A Grave exercises editorial control over these listings.

Find-A-Grave Beta Testing Uploading Untranscribed Photos ...

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References

Sources

Colker, David (August 26, 1997). "Web site answers grave concerns about stars". Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles: Tribune Publishing. Retrieved September 28, 2011. (subscription required)
Johnstone, Nick (July 14, 2004). "Why I love ... findagrave.com". The Guardian. London: Guardian Media Group. Retrieved September 28, 2011.
Cobbs, Chris (July 12, 2001). "Web site attracts millions of grave-seekers". Orlando Sentinel. Orlando, Florida: Tribune Publishing. Retrieved September 28, 2011.
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.
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.
King, Peter (October 2, 2009). "Tip: Find a Grave has info you're dying to know". Newsday. Melville, New York: Cablevision. Retrieved September 28, 2011. (registration required)