Find a Grave Member for 12 Years

Today is my 12th anniversary of joining Find a Grave to add ancestor memorials, link ancestors to parents/siblings/children, post photos, post bite-sized bios, indicate which ancestors were veterans, offer suggested edits to improve memorials others have created, and use the site for cousin bait. All for free!

Above, my member profile page. Initially, I added a photo to personalize the page, then later added a "bio" listing the main ancestor branches I'm researching. Note that the profile offers the option of listing a "home page" - which, for me, is this genealogy blog. This makes it easy (and free) for cousins and surname researchers to contact me.

Another advantage of Find a Grave (owned by Ancestry) is that its memorials are included in search results on a number of major genealogy platforms, extending the reach of my ancestor memorial pages.

For convenience, I've created a number of virtual cemeteries in which I grouped listings of memorials for my paternal ancestors, my maternal ancestors, hubby's paternal ancestors, hubby's maternal ancestors, and related families. I can share the URL of these virtual cemeteries with relatives who are interested in knowing where family members were buried.

Over the years, several cousins and FAN club members (friends, associates, neighbors of my ancestors) have gotten in touch with me via Find a Grave's messaging feature. And I've connected with a couple of distant cousins because I discovered memorials they had made for our mutual ancestors and I sent them a message.

As I conduct research, I really appreciate when I find a memorial for one of my ancestors and see that someone has carefully photographed the grave, transcribed the info, and maybe even added a couple of extra pieces of info. I've also requested grave photos a few times, and had most of these requests fulfilled. I've thanked these volunteers privately, but this is my public thank-you to the many thousands of volunteers who add memorials and photos on Find a Grave.

Let me say that I entirely agree with the criticisms of Find a Grave for not preventing memorial pages from being created immediately after reports of peopling being killed in a terrible crime or disaster. There must be technical fixes to stop this, and by now, after years of criticism and outrage, it should be a top priority.

For myself, even after a dozen years, I continue to use Find a Grave every week, sometimes every day, to search for clues on memorial pages or add details to improve my ancestors' memorial pages for the sake of future generations.

A Look Back at My Genealogy Projects in 2021

Staying close to home in 2021, as I did in 2020, it was a year chock-full of genealogy projects. 

Although I've been doing some research, I was particularly focused on documenting family history for descendants and to share more widely online. Genealogy is never complete...but anything I share is more than the family (and future researchers) had before. Why wait? I'm sharing now.

Also, I blogged, wrote, and gave talks about preserving family history, prepping for the 1950 US Census, perpetuating family history, and many other topics.

Highlights:

• I published a new edition of my best-selling book, Planning a Future for Your Family's Past, receiving highly favorable reviews from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Family Tree Magazine (UK), as well as from genealogy societies and genealogy bloggers.
• It was a real honor to be a featured guest during the WikiTree Challenge. The remarkable WikiTree super-sleuths smashed several brick walls (Burk, Farkas, and Kunstler) and provided concrete clues to help me continue the research!  
• I made nearly two dozen live webinar presentations to US genealogy societies from coast to coast, plus one talk in person. In addition, I recorded talks for the New England Regional Genealogical Conference, THE Genealogy Show UK (summer and winter), and the Virtual Genealogy Association Conference. Wonderful audiences! 
• It was fun being a #GenChat guest expert, sparking discussion about finding ancestors when the 1950 US Census is released in April. Also I participated in lots of #GenChat and #AncestryHour chats, occasionally chiming in on #ANZAncestryTime chats.
• I wrote an article, "Finding Heirs for Your Family History," published in the December, 2021 issue of Internet Genealogy magazine.
• I wrote an article, "Free and Almost Free Genealogy," published in the winter 2021 issue of Avotaynu, the International Review of Jewish Genealogy.
• I found new homes (museums, libraries, historical societies) for artifacts such as theater programs collected by my late father-in-law from the 1920s to the 1980s. Family is so happy about donating these items. More to go!
• Consulting with relatives, I wrote and posted (on Find a Grave, Family Search, MyHeritage, WikiTree, and elsewhere) dozens of bite-sized ancestor bios from my tree and hubby's tree. Good progress, with more in the works.
• My late father-in-law left hundreds of photos and negatives, which I'm slowly scanning, captioning, and sharing with relatives. To be continued in 2022, along with scanning my childhood photos. Scanning is easy, captioning is key.
• I helped my hubby record several family-history videos and prepare a number of written reminiscences, complete with photos. Lesson learned: For our family audience, videos are watched once, but printed materials live on.
• I expanded my virtual cemeteries on Find a Grave to share with relatives and keep burial places from being forgotten in the future. More to go!
• I expanded my knowledge base by watching talks all year, not just those fantastic RootsTech talks but also programs hosted by national, regional, and local genealogical societies. In my bunny slippers and headset! (PS: I'm excited to be a RootsTech Influencer--aka Ambassador--for 2022.)

My next post will be a look ahead to 2022, when I will celebrate 14 years of genealogy blogging.

Two More Reasons to Create Virtual Cemeteries on FindaGrave

So far, I've created five virtual cemeteries on the free, worldwide, Ancestry-owned website FindaGrave.com. 

See my detailed post here about how and why to create a virtual cemetery on FindaGrave.

I've named each virtual cemetery and for some, I've added a brief description ("Descendants of Solomon Elias Burk and..."). Others will get a description very soon.

Names and descriptions help relatives and researchers who want to browse these memorials.

Now I want to point out two more reasons--two very good reasons!--for creating a virtual cemetery on FindaGrave.

Reason 1: Quickly go to a memorial 

Often, I access an ancestor's FindaGrave by clicking a link on my Ancestry family tree. 

If I'm not working on my Ancestry tree at the moment, I just go to my listing of virtual cemeteries on FindaGrave and locate a particular memorial that way. Fast and easy! 

I'm accessing many more of my memorials these days as I compose and post brief, bite-sized bios on FindaGrave and other websites. How easy it is to simply click on my virtual cemetery, see a memorial, and note which still need bite-sized bios.

Reason 2: Return to a memorial to see what's new

Just today I returned to a memorial I haven't accessed in months...and discovered that someone left a flower two weeks ago! In fact, looking at linked memorials, I saw this person left a flower on more than one of my ancestor's pages. Cousin bait?!

I immediately checked that person's FindaGrave profile page, found no listing of surnames, and sent a polite message (saying thank you for leaving a flower, and please let me know whether you're related to my ancestor). Fingers crossed that perhaps this is a distant cousin or someone in the FAN Club (friends, associates, neighbors).

Note I don't manage every one of my ancestor memorials (nor all of my hubby's ancestor memorials). As long as they're in good hands, I'm usually content to simply submit edits, including bite-sized bios. Other people also submit edits to these memorials on occasion (Census data, maiden names, etc). 

That's why it's always worthwhile checking back to see what's new. With my virtual cemeteries, I'm only a click away from any ancestor memorial.

Where the Bodies Are Buried, at a Glance

 

A key aspect of planning a future for my family's past is to be sure relatives know where the bodies are buried. Literally.

Ancestors memorialized on Find a Grave

Over the years, I've been creating and/or improving memorials on FindaGrave for ancestors who are gone but not forgotten. The site is free and easy to access.

Also, I began gathering memorial pages into a virtual cemetery for each line (or intermarried families) on my family tree and my hubby's family tree.

It's quick and not complicated to create a virtual cemetery. FindaGrave has instructions here.

Then, with a virtual cemetery, I can (1) post a link to that page within my online trees, (2) include a link to that page with bite-sized bios I write and distribute or post, and (3) send relatives a link to that page so they can see which ancestors are buried where.

Virtual cemetery tour

A virtual cemetery also shows some key info at a glance.

The image at top is part of a virtual cemetery I created for my husband's intermarried Wood and Slatter families (that's the catchy title of this virtual cemetery).

Each memorial page in the virtual cemetery includes the ancestor's name, dates, and cemetery details.*

For convenience, I sort my virtual cemeteries by surname, alphabetically. But the memorials in a virtual cemetery are also sortable by how recently each was added and by cemetery. 

If any photo is on the memorial, a thumbnail of the main photo appears in this virtual cemetery listing.

Look closely and see, in grey, the FindaGrave memorial ID number. If I want to correspond with another user or with FindaGrave about a particular memorial, I can refer to that ID number.

Another handy feature: A small blue dot indicates whether I'm the manager of a particular memorial. In the image at top, I don't manage the memorial for Adelaide Mary Slatter Baker but I do manage the memorial for Jane Ann Wood Black.

*Remember, this is only the info that has been entered into FindaGrave. If it's incorrect or incomplete, you can submit edits or--if you manage that memorial--you can make the changes yourself. Don't forget to link ancestors to their spouses, children, and parents!

Try a virtual cemetery

FindaGrave is available all over the world, both for adding memorials and for improving memorials with bite-sized biographies, Census data, grave and personal photos, family links, and more. 

Do consider creating a virtual cemetery to organize the final resting places of ancestors, so future generations will know where the bodies are buried.