Of course, none of us would do this

Question

This morning, Judy G. Russell, "The Legal Genealogist," has posted again about the problems caused when Find A Grave contributors use just-published obituaries to create memorials for people they don't even know.  Even if none of us do that, maybe someone reading this knows someone who does, or is in a position to influence Find A Grave policy.

(I thought I'd posted about this before, but can't find it in my past questions.)

https://www.legalgenealogist.com/2019/10/07/hey-find-a-grave/

Comments

I think prominent people are equally deserving of some privacy.

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Once an obituary has been released to the internet or a newspaper, it's out there.  The sport of genealogy has become a game.  There's no stopping that. As for the man who hadn't been notified, he's more likely to stumble across an obituary online on his home newspaper site, than accidentally stumble across a profile on FAG or Wikitree.

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That does not mean that FAG shouldn't have a policy, either imposing a reasonable waiting period, or making transfer of memorials to immediate relatives mandatory, or both.

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Making transfer of memorials to immediate relatives mandatory sounds like common sense. 

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Transferring memorials to immediate relatives is already mandatory on Find A Grave. One of the "big" misunderstandings is that Find A Grave is NOT considered a "genealogy site". It wasn't started as one and it still isn't about genealogy although many genealogists use it - as do people with many other interests such as:
military historians
local historians
small cemetery offices (for an "online directory")
taphophiles
movie and tv fans
royalty watchers
and MORE.

The irony of Judy Russell's outrage is that she isn't even really a Find A Grave user - she's created ONE memorial in her eight years on Find A Grave.

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How is that relevant? Can you only be outraged if you're active on FAG?

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It's relevant because it doesn't effect her. If you don't use a website, why do you (or Judy Russell) think you have a right to tell them what they can / cannot do?  When she went on her tirade against GedMatch, I didn't agree with her stance but I understood she had a stake in it because she used the site. I didn't use the website, and had "no dog in that fight" so my opinion did not matter. These "influencers" have gotten too big for their britches as my grandmother would have said.

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Similar to this thread, this morning I briefly considered creating a profile for a 21 year local young man who lost his life tragically to some problem with training to become a volunteer fireman.  His death occurred two months ago and there was another article in the newspaper telling us his name had been added to a national monument for fallen firemen this past year.  It had always been his dream to be a fireman and the monument is in a different state but he
saw a roadside poster about it and made his father detour from their trip and go back so he could see it and they took a picture of him standing in front of it as a 19 year old youth, never dreaming his name would be there two years later.  There has been a lot of questions and investigations about his death and there is still no conclusion or settlement of his death.  I decided that, for my self, it was
not appropriate to start a profile for this youth at this time.
He certainly  deserves a profile for his dedication but I felt
it was too soon after his death and if the family wants to make the efforts when life ever returns to normal for them.
I realize it is not a Find a Grave item but I feel the same reasons apply to both situations.  Just my feelings for me.

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Some time after this post, in Jan. 2022,  Findagrave made some changes to their policies on the creation  and transfer of recent memorials.

https://news.findagrave.com/2022/01/11/memorials-for-the-recently-deceased/7

and here more fully explained.https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/major-update-to-findagrave-memorials/

The changed  policy is, in my opinion, a slight improvement but doesn't go far enough. An unwanted 'memorial' created by a stranger within a short time after a death certainly has the capacity to distress non members.

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Helen, do you contribute to Find A Grave beyond your own family?

Answer 1

A couple of weeks ago I created a profile here on WikiTree for Sigmund Jähn. He wasn't yet buried, when someone had already added the FindAGrave template for his FAG page. I was like ???? What is that? How is he already on FAG when he isn't even buried.... ?

Comments

He's notable. I've gone there to look up a famous person after hearing about their death and found that people had already created multiple memorials.

Answer 2

You never know. You just never know what you don't know.

Which is why, when I am working on Wikitree in lines (even family lines) that I am not in touch with IRL, I pretty much have a 45/50 year cut-off line unless I know the subject of the profile has passed, but even then I don't post unless about 20 years have gone by since the DOD. Just my standard. Because the author is right. Few people intend to be cold, but unintentional coldness is just as chilly.

Answer 3

I found on Find A Grave it's very common for certain individuals to "stake" out a cemetery and get very touchy when you step in on their territory. I started watching my nearby cemetery when I first got my account and thought it would be neat to enter a few profiles. I did a bit of exactly what you mention - checked the recent obits, saw they were buried in the last week, set up a few memorials. Wow - the person who had staked their claim out there immediately caught up on her obits and the next few I attempted had all been completed already. In fact, every time I attempted to go back and check over the next several weeks was met with frustration as that individual almost jumped on the opportunity to be the first, so after awhile I just gave up.

Probably just as well, as I seem to be better at finding discrepancies or updates and sending them off as helpful edits rather than scouring over recent obits and trying to be NUMBER ONE as it comes to needing to be the first to get a memorial created.

Comments

Wow.  I didn't know anybody did that.

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If I find a cemetery that is unlisted, I photograph and make profiles for all the stones I can, knowing that others will be along soon to add what I couldn't find. Oftentimes I later find out I'm related.

Answer 4

I don't see a problem with this. Most family members are grieving and wouldn't think to make a profile on FAG. If you find a memorial later, simply ask for a transfer. I'm always happy to complete a transfer if they can state a close relationship

Comments

Here is the first post about this from August:

https://www.legalgenealogist.com/2019/08/05/a-modest-proposal/

It mentions many problems.

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YOU are happy to. Some people are not. And they refuse to even respond. It IS a problem.

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You do know that Find A Grave implemented a change earlier this year, don't you, Paul?

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Yes. I am aware of the change. It hasn't stopped some people from being jerks about transferring memorials to the family.

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Memorials for the recently deceased no longer require requesting a transfer.  So your problem is what?

Answer 5

Oddly, I find myself disagreeing with this argument on some fronts, but I do agree with it on others.

I don't think that proposing a time frame on when you can add a profile to the website would be easily implemented.

The programming would need to be updated, for one thing. Then there would also have to be some sort of verification of "are you a family member" if the profile was created in that 'grief window' they mention of a week or 30 days or whatever the decided upon number would be.

Another thing I don't agree with is a blog that puts forth a 'legal' aspect for the hobby but then wants to do things based on emotion rather than guidelines.

Coming at the issue (and it is a true issue, I agree with this) with an emotional ploy of grieving family members being slighted does get more people involved. However, I feel that disecting the guidelines and community standards would be more beneficial. How are the standards and guidelines upheld currently and what is getting through the cracks, so to speak? Is the system being abused in some way?

I've had my own set of challenges with FindAGrave, including harassment for creating a profile, but I never see an issue with someone creating a profile based on factual information, no matter the time they do it. If it is published in the paper, it is public information.

Comments

I also want to say that I feel this rush to add profiles does make for sloppy work, as it does on any site. I fully understand that people really, REALLY enjoy their hobbies and FindAGrave is certainly a hobby for some. It has been for me for over a decade. Some people love to add every obit that appears in their morning paper, others just do it as they can. It takes all kinds to make the world go 'round.

However, just preventing folks from adding profiles for a set time period does nothing to improve the site overall or the quality of information added.

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The time limit would be a simple courtesy to grieving families.

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The programming would need to be updated, for one thing. Then there would also have to be some sort of verification of "are you a family member" if the profile was created in that 'grief window' they mention of a week or 30 days or whatever the decided upon number would be. 

It wouldn't be that difficult to do. You just set a trigger that prevents any creation of any new memorial until a set time has passed, be that ninety days, thirty days, or whatever the agreed-upon policy is.

The notion of watching obits and rushing to be the first to create a memorial seems grossly macabre to me.

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Oh, not difficult?  Let's say someone is determined to create a memorial within the waiting period. They could create it without a death date and it would be accepted. They could create it with only a death year and it would be accepted. They could create it with the wrong death date and it would be accepted. Find A Grave / Ancestry would have to require a full death date AND it be noneditable. How would that work for grave markers that only have birth and death years inscribed?  
Also, if Find A Grave imposed a waiting period, it would apply to ALL users, including family of the deceased?

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​​Here's how you do it.  This is not hard for programmers to figure out.

If a memorial has no death date or only a death year, the birth year must be a minimum of 100 years ago. No birth year and only a death year/date? No memorial.

Otherwise, you throw an error and the created memorial goes into a moderation queue and the creator is asked to provide documentation of their familial relation to the deceased.

All of this is easily programmed. And it places the onus on the creator to provide proof that allows the queued memorial to be published. The queue is aged out after a set time period (a week, a month, a quarter) and automatically deleted if the creator doesn't provide the proper documentation.

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You do realize that not all markers have full dates on them, right?  Even modern ones?  The marker for my high school science teacher and his wife only have years, and they were both born less than 100 years ago. You're saying that even though their memorials fulfill the site's purpose (recording the final disposition), those two individuals should NOT be on the site because they don't have full dates?  Seriously?

I didn't see anything in your post about a wrong d.o.d., such as using the same day and month, but substracting a year (2021 instead of the actual 2022) to get around a waiting period.

As far as a memorial going into a moderation crew, do you have any idea how far behind the Find A Grave's support team is dealing with their current duties? Edits (that you email to Find A Grave support) takes 4-5 weeks to be addressed. Merges, which is an onsite tool (not an email), are over 7 weeks behind. And you want to add to that????  

But the bottom line is, why do you think you get to tell Find A Grave how to run their site?

Answer 6

I think there was an earlier thread on this.

Theres a vast difference between surveying older cemeteries and adding photos and inscriptions to findagrave before they are  lost  and adding 'memorials of unknown people who have recently died.

Just as a test  I had a look at the cemetery my parent's are buried in, a woodland site in England, Surely this doesn't happen here . It's an 'ecological' cemetery with minimal or no memorial stones , These graves are designed to  dissapear into the countryside. People choose it for this.

Of the four memorials on findagrave, one findagrave memorial  for a child was placed by an aunt , one  was of a young man killed in an accident by a friend, the third by another relative and placed several years after the burial.The fourth though was different. It added from an online obit in June of this year .The burial was due to take place 2 weeks later. This memorial was added before the day of the  burial  It was added by a person from the US who has added 2, 500 memorials  from obits in the last year. Not quite sure how she came accros one from rural England.

 I find this quite repugnant and would have been both angry and upset  had it been my parents.

Answer 7

I don't know how to feel about this. It is obvious that Find A Grave memorials made by family members are much better than those made by strangers. But in my own case, I didn't really know my father, but heard he moved to Seattle, then Phoenix, then Tennessee (he's from NY). I heard he died probably in Tennessee, but where? He did pop up on Find A Grave, and I was very grateful. I contacted the memorial owner for a photo for here and was amused, rather than upset, that he said I could use 1 of the 3 photos he had posted. He also didn't offer to transfer the memorial to me, but then again, I didn't ask. Maybe I am less touchy than other people would be. On the other hand, I think 20 years is far too long to wait IMHO.

Answer 8

Okay, so I am absolutely guilty of this, especially back when I used to use find a grave religiously (before I joined Wikitree). Mostly, it comes down to the fact that some people in my area are the same, and they will make the profile and refuse to transfer it to anyone including family members who qualify under transfer guidelines. They also have emailed me quite angrily in the past. So I and a few others in the area collaborate on making the profiles before the other person that I’m thinking of specifically can - though it really started as all of us separately getting mad at them, IMO! And they do the obits of people all over the REGION. They don’t accept messages to their profile and have over 20 THOUSAND MEMORIALS ADDED. At least I and many of my peers transfer the memorial honestly.

Comments

Liz, I think you hit the nail on the head. If you're truly honoring the recently departed and also have the intent of honoring the family, you'll make a proper memorial and when confronted by a family member, you won't hesitate to turn it over to them. But one bad apple spoils the whole bunch, and if that grieving family member meets with silence or even mistrust from a profile manager, it only amplifies the whole situation for everyone involved. I'd hope that the positive stories would hold as much weight as the negative, but I fear that won't happen.

Answer 9

Just as a reminder for this thread - please type out Find a Grave or use FG if you must. Here's the discussion on G2G: https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1055761/find-a-grave-acronym

Comments

Just as a reminder - this thread is THREE years old, and was posted by someone who has since left WikiTree.  Oh, and it was posted before the lengthy G2G discussion about Find A Grave.

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Great point! I just saw the date of the original post. It showed up on the top of my G2G feed because of new activity.