Find A Grave

One of the projects I have been spending a lot of time on lately is added photos to the Find A Grave website.   This site has over 44 million listings and can be an incredibly useful source because it shows the actual headstone, which in MOST cases is pretty accurate.  However, much to my frustration, I am also discovering that people are posting things about my family that is just wrong!  My father was not the grandson of the governor of Iowa, nor was my great-grandfather married to Rhoda Sullivan.  The people who post these things are the ones who initially entered info on that person and therefore "own" that virtual grave and only they can change it.  So far, I am striking out in getting people to correct their mistakes or transferring control of those "memorials" to me.  It is incredibly frustrating!  Now I know how people feel when they see an error on my Casto Connections website.  I have even found where someone took a photo right off my website and placed in on Find A Grave, a direct violation of their rules.  So with the good the site does, there is a little bad as well.  I guess I wouldn't use what I find there as a "strong" source but the good news is that if someone has uploaded a photo of your ancestor's tombstone, it still exists!  One other problem is that the site seems to be "down" a lot but with so much information and so many people uploading on a daily basis, that doesn't surprise me.  Overall, I've been very pleased with being able to add dozens of tombstone photos for my ancestors and their families and I also feel very fortunate that I have had the opportunities to go to so many of the final resting places of my kin and take the photos myself.  Always count your blessings!

Until Next Time!

Danita