Research: Find A Grave link

Question

Is anyone having much luck with the 'Find A Grave' link off of the 'Research' profile link?

When I go to a profile and then its 'Research' link, I click on 'Find A Grave' and like 9 times out of 10 (or less) I get the "Sorry, blah, blah, blah" and no link to a 'Find A Grave' entry.

Then, I go to the 'Family Search' link and find stuff and, often times, find a link to the 'Find A Grave' site ... so, the 'Find A Grave' link should have found the entry.  What's up with that?  Is it because we're not putting in enough information for the 'Find A Grave' search engine ... or, is that search engine just not up to snuff?

This isn't a big deal ... more of a curiosity.

Comments

I have found often that just the link doesn't work, so I usually include both the Memorial # and the link in the source brackets, so if the link isn't working you can google Findagave Memorial # ..... and usually find it again.

Like this:

<ref>Find A Grave Memorial# 11785498    http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=11785498 </ref>

Answer 1

In my experience, the Find A Grave search facility is fairly limited, and places like FamilySearch and Ancestry that have indexes into FindAGrave tend to do a lot better finding stuff.  I use Find A Grave searches when trying to find hints of other family located in the same area; finding all of SURNAME buried in the same cemetery or county is often pretty helpful, and not an approach that Ancestry or FamilySearch is really geared toward.

Comments

Find a grave's search engine requires that you put in the exact spelling on the memorial, and about dates don't work and nearby places. It is as Stephen said very limited.