Find a Grave

Find a Grave
Type of site
 Online database
Available in English
Owner Ancestry.com
Editor Jim Tipton
Website www.findagrave.com
Alexa rank Negative increase 4,217 (November 2016)[1]
Commercial Yes
Registration Optional
Launched 1998 (1998)
Current status Active

Find a Grave is a commercial website that allows the public to access and add to an online database of cemetery records.

History

The site was created in 1995 by Salt Lake City resident Jim Tipton, who sought a site to cater to his hobby of visiting the burial sites of celebrities.[2] He later added an online forum.[3] Find a Grave was launched as a commercial entity in 1998, first as a trade name[4] and then incorporated in 2000.[5][6]

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.

On September 30, 2013, Ancestry.com announced its acquisition of the company. Tipton said of the purchase that Ancestry.com had "... been linking and driving traffic to the site for several years. Burial information is a wonderful source for people researching their family history ..." Ancestry.com planned to bolster the resources dedicated to Find a Grave to "... launch a new mobile app, improve customer support, introduce an enhanced edit system for submitting updates to memorials, foreign-language support, and other site improvements."[7]

As of September 2016, Find a Grave contained over 152 million burial records and 75 million photos.[8][7]

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 (grave marker, the individual, etc.), and contributor information.[9]

Interment listings are added by individuals,[10] genealogical societies,[11] and other institutions such as the International Wargraves Photography Project.[12]

Find a Grave's headquarters in Lehi, Utah

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.[13]

Find a Grave also maintains lists of memorials of famous persons by their "claim to fame", such as Medal of Honor recipients,[14] religious figures,[15] and educators.[16] Find a Grave exercises editorial control over these listings.[17]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Findagrave.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2016-11-06.
  2. ↑ "Find A Grave Contributor: Jim Tipton". Find a Grave. 2007. Retrieved May 11, 2012.
  3. ↑ Maynard, Meleah (February 16, 2000). "Grave Matters: Minnesota's dead are only a click away". City Pages. Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota: citypages.com. Archived from the original on September 28, 2012. Retrieved September 8, 2012.
  4. ↑ "Entity No. 2442925-0151". Utah Secretary of State. 1998. Retrieved November 11, 2011.
  5. ↑ "Entity No. 4729413-0143". Utah Secretary of State. 2000. Retrieved November 11, 2011.
  6. ↑ "Division of Corporations Entity File No. 3168328". Delaware Department of State. 2000. Archived from the original on July 21, 2011. Retrieved November 11, 2011.
  7. 1 2 "Ancestry.com Acquires Find A Grave". Ancestry.com. Retrieved 1 October 2013.
  8. ↑ "Find A Grave". Find a Grave. Retrieved 2016-09-12.
  9. ↑ "FAQ". Find A Grave.
  10. ↑ Loudon, Bennett J. (August 30, 2011). "Civil War history carved in stone in Pittsford". Democrat and Chronicle. Gannett. Retrieved September 28, 2011.
  11. ↑ Moody, Sharon Tate (January 24, 2010). "Find A Grave can shorten the search". The Tampa Tribune. TBO.com (Tampa Bay Online). 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.
  12. ↑ "Member Record number 46770518". Find A Grave.
  13. ↑ "Find A Grave FAQ: 'How do I submit a photo request?'". Find a Grave. Retrieved 2012-01-02.
  14. ↑ "Claim to Fame: Medal of Honor Recipients". Find a Grave. Retrieved 2012-05-31.
  15. ↑ "Claim to Fame: Religious figures". Find a Grave. October 11, 1954. Retrieved 2012-05-31.
  16. ↑ "Claim to Fame: Educators". Find a Grave. Retrieved 2012-05-31.
  17. ↑ "Famous Bio Guidelines". Find a Grave. 1935-05-02. Retrieved 2012-05-31.

Sources

External links

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