USING FIND A GRAVE (FAG) IN YOUR FAMILY RESEARCH

 I have been asked several times recently what I think of the website Find A Grave (FAG)for helping with family research. Honestly, I think it is a wonderful tool.  Plus if you have a desire to volunteer on your own schedule it is a great way to give back by taking photos in cemeteries or adding your own research.

However, just like on-line family trees, be careful.  Some people are very careful with the content and photos - others seem to just put anything on the memorials.  I personally think some people "collect" memorials like baseball cards.  Use the information on any memorial as a clue for more possible information.

I strongly recommend that if you will be using this site a lot to set up a free account.  While you can look around all you like without an account, if you want to add photos, request corrections, or ask that relatives memorials be transferred to you an account is necessary.  

This is how the homepage looks today (below).  The photos change based on the season. Beware that there are a lot of genealogy related ads on this site, which can slow down how long it takes to load.


Basic searching: 

Searching for a memorial can be done several ways.  I usually start with a name, death year (options are exact, before, or after) and a place (such as county and state).  Below is a very basic search for my grandfather.




This is what comes up from that basic search:





If I click on the listed memorial, this is what I see: 



This memorial has burial info, family info, photos, and connections to other family member's memorials.

Sometimes you will have to do a broader search and you will get a list of memorials instead:

If I am looking for John Groff in Lancaster County, PA who may have died before 1840 the list will look like this. Remember this may not be a complete list as the list is based strictly on memorials that have been made based on gravestones or known people.  Not everyone has a gravestone or even a memorial.



 According to the above screen there are 6 "John Groffs" buried in Lancaster County, PA who died before 1840.  Now I (or you) can look at the list and make some choices based on years or cemeteries. 

I (or you) look over the list and find the one "John Groff" we are looking for.  Great! Check the info with what you have or know. Use the links to various relatives as clues for more research.  I tend to screen shot the images into a Word document and put with my research.  

What if I can't find my "John Groff" in Lancaster County, PA?  I usually will drop the county out the search first and just do the state.  People tended to be buried close to home or at their church's graveyard which may actually be in another county. In the case of "John Groff" when I searched for all of them in PA who died before 1840 I still only got the same 6 as the above screen.  

So I will broaden the search again to include all of the US:




This time I got 11 memorials. Besides PA, burials were in NJ, Maryland, and NY. So you can see that changing the search criteria may bring other results.  Keep trying different spellings, years, and locations.

Some tips:

  • Try different spellings of the name.
  • Remember that not everyone has a middle initial, or uses their first name (maybe use middle or nickname instead).  Be flexible when searching.
  • Be generous with the years.  If you are looking for someone who you think died in 1842 put in 1845 and before. 
  • Be flexible with locations.  There are options to search for actual cemeteries.  Or you can search by county and state, or just by state.  Thanks to volunteers around the world, there are also some non-US cemeteries on here now.  Explore and see what you can find.
  • It is possible to request a correction to a family memorial.  Be polite, supply the correction, and  always explain the source for the info. 
  • Remember that with the exception of the FAG staff, everybody else is a volunteer or a family member.  They have lives and may not get to your requested edit as quick as you would like.  Be patient.
  • Also remember that the person who has your relative's memorial does not have to change the information on the memorial.  If you feel the info is important, it is possible to contact the staff at FAG and have them look into it.  Always be polite and patient.
  • The more you explore FAG and learn, the more information you will find.

Happy Searching.


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