Find-A-Grave Needs to Take Heed

The vast majority of contributors on Find A Grave have the best of intentions — to help others. At its best, the site can be a boon for Family History researchers.  Being able to view the grave/headstone of a relative buried overseas or in a place we cannot easily access ourselves is a huge treat.  That this website is completely free makes it even better.  Several times I have been delighted to find a relative has a memorial on Find-A-Grave, complete with dates and details.  Always I am amazed at the generosity of people out there, giving their time to help make researching easier for others.

Within the Find-A-Grave community, however, there has emerged a small group of users who seem more motivated by competition. The top contributors have added over 200,000 memorials each, and there are some who have over a million each.

As competition took hold among many Find-A-Grave contributors, examples have arisen of less-than-ethical behaviour.  There are some who haunt the obituaries and death notices, eager to be the first to add memorials for the recently deceased.  Often even before family members have been notified.  They add memorials for people they do not know with no thought to the families and their wants/needs.

For years, the wider Genealogical community have asked Ancestry, who own Find-A-Grave, to stop incentivizing this behavior by reporting the statistics: the numbers of memorials created by total strangers, not reporting on actual graves of genealogical interest, but the obits that hit the online news sites at midnight.

Earlier this year, Find a Grave initiated a new system meant to address this issue. Under the new system for the posting of memorials for the “recently deceased” (defined as anyone who has died within the past year), anyone could still create a memorial, but only limited information was to be displayed for three months if the person creating the memorial wasn’t a family member.  While acknowledged as a step in the right direction, many felt it did not fully address the issue, and unfortunately there is a loophole.  It turns out that Find a Grave only made that rule effective on the web-browser-based platform. People using the mobile app could - and do - get around the rule entirely.

This was borne out after the tragic school shooting in Texas which claimed the lives of nineteen fourth graders and two teachers.  Before the ink was dry on the headlines, complete strangers had added the details of the dead to Find-A-Grave.  Along with the husband of one of those teachers who died of a heart attack upon hearing the news. They even added the shooter.

THIS HAS TO STOP. 

In another wonderful post, The Legal Genealogist Judy Russell has summed up the feelings of the Genealogical community brilliantly.  She has also suggested we all contact Ancestry, who own Find-A-Grave, and let them know that further changes must be made to protect the families and loved ones of the recently deceased.

Take a look at Judy's post - Judy G. Russell, “Ancestry, this one’s on you,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 31 May 2022).  And make your voice heard.  Because THIS HAS TO STOP.

Changes to Find-A-Grave

Find A Grave has recently announced a new system for the posting of memorials for the “recently deceased” - which they define as those who have died within the past year - in an effort to give the families greater opportunity than they have had previously to control the death reports and memorials for their own loved ones.

The announcement has been posted on the Find A Grave website under the title “Memorials for those who are recently deceased,” and the new conditions stated applied from 11 January 2022.

 

^{Over the past few years there has been some controversy over people dedicated to the website adding memorials for anyone and everyone, scrolling newspaper death and funeral notices and rushing to create memorials for complete strangers.  For some it seems to be a numbers game, trying to create as many memorials as they can, as quickly possible.  There have been ongoing complaints by family members who have gone online to create a memorial for a loved one, only to find one already listed, owned by a complete stranger.  While some memorial creators have been happy for family members to take ownership of, and update or correct memorials, others have not.}

 

^{The new system announced attempts to address this issue, and while it is not perfect - there are still questions about editing existing memorials, proof of relationship and so on - it is certainly a big step in the right direction.}