New FIND A GRAVE Info

FIND A GRAVE MEMORIAL INFORMATION AND EXAMPLE

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=mr&GRid=52366207&
This should lead you to my Find A Grave page.  From there you can search for other
options.

NEW INFO SINCE I WROTE THIS ARTICLE IN 2012:

NEARLY ALL FIND A GRAVE MEMORIALS ARE AVAILABLE

FREE ON ANCESTRY.COM.  They can be added easily to your family tree.

This is a marvelous help in tracing your family.  In case you aren't aware of

it you can create a family tree (or many of them) for free on Ancestry.com.  You only need to

pay to do research in their tremendous and evergrowing information bank.
I have found that I can find a large amount of info by just following hints.

Copying family photos to your Family Tree is also free.  

You can also copy photos and some posted info from other contributors to your tree free. 

Below is the example of a Find A Grave Memorial I mentioned in the Post heading:
 http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=52366207
Memorial for Isaac A. Stone 1831-1900 at Butternut Valley Cemetery, Otsego County, NY 

This is an example of a Find A Grave memorial and all the information one can contain.  This is one of my Great Grandfathers.  Someone else had created the memorial and I asked for him to transfer it to me to
Maintain.  That way I was able to add all the information on the left and link family members.  I love that tool to connect family members.

THE FIND A GRAVE WEBSITE is free to check out and to add to.  Memorials are added to cemeteries all over the world by volunteers.   If they weren't added by a generous volunteer, the names don't show up in the  cemeteries.  So, I strongly urge you to consider adding memorials, especially your immediate family such as parents, grandparents, great grandparents, etc.  Starting with your immediate family makes it less confusing to get started.  It is very easy to add the memorials and it can be done quite quickly as you go along.  Someone, sometime will find your information very special.

As an example of that, I actually found great great grandparents buried at the Holdridge Cemetery in Otsego County, NY when I had assumed all along that they were buried near Vermont.  Another nice find for me was Isaac's mother Polly Aylsworth Stone at the Verona Cemetery as well as a photo of her headstone. A big thank you to the volunteers that had taken the time to do these.

As you will note from my memorial example, photos also can be added easily.  Whenever I visit cemeteries, I take photos of my family stones and any others that I know or find of interest.  Their lives are preserved and honored this way when you add the photos to their memorials.  You can also add flowers and leave notes to your heart's content.

You can request photos of headstones from volunteers that may live closer to a cemetery where that person is buried.  I used to be on that volunteer list and as I received requests, I checked out the interments at those cemeteries.  Due to advancing age, I place more requests that find them now.  Volunteer photo takers are dedicated and very generous with their time.
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Each time you plan to make a memorial for a person, you need to check to see if the person has a Find A Grave memorial already in place.  It helps if you know where they were to be buried.  Check to see if the cemetery is listed in the obituary.  If not, I try to create a memorial for them and add the obituary to the Bio part and any other info like their marriage announcement.

On the FAG Old Site (Still available thankfully as I like it much better than the new site) you can save time in searching names at a cemetery.  Just search the name top left side of the page when the main page opens up.  This was something it took me over a year to discover, so I hope this saves you from learning the hard way as I did.  Before that I went immediately to the View All Interments and spent countless time searching that way wondering why in on earth there wasn't a quicker way.  Well, duh!  There was!  Try that kind of search in a cemetery of over 3,000 interments that the Mt. View one in Mesa, AZ has where an aunt and uncle of mine are buried!

Often you can come up with someone you are looking for on Find A Grave via Google and other search engines.  I've found an amazing amount of information when searching for my ancestors in the New England states way back to the 1600s.  Give it a try.  You will be excited with the info you can find.
Written by Donna Davenport (Updated 3/3/18) Updated 5/26/18.