Help:Find A Grave

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Here are the agreed-upon recommendations related to Find A Grave usage on WikiTree.

For more help or to discuss anything related to Find A Grave, use the G2G tag findagrave.

Contents

What is Find A Grave?

Find A Grave is a user-generated content website for cemetery and gravestone information owned by Ancestry.com. Members photograph gravestones and create memorial pages.

Using Find A Grave as a Source

Find A Grave is a valuable source for gravestone information but you cannot assume that all information on Find A Grave is correct. It is all entered by users, like on WikiTree, and it may not be based on reliable sources.

Generally speaking, if there is a photo of the grave you can use the information on that gravestone with confidence. Even then, remember that:

  1. grave markers can be incorrect, especially for birth information.
  2. grave markers can be created and placed long after death by descendants.
  3. markers may be "cenotaphs" i.e. monuments to people buried elsewhere.
  4. memorial pages may misidentify the person whose gravestone it is.

If there is no photo be sure to investigate the original source before using any of the information on Find A Grave.

Usage on pre-1700 and project-managed profiles

Be especially careful about using any information from Find A Grave on profiles of people born before 1700. Very few of these memorials are based on actual gravestones. See Help:Pre-1700 Profiles#Cite reliable sources.

Linking to Find A Grave from WikiTree

There is a handy {{FindAGrave}} "link template" for creating links to memorial pages. Here is how to use it.

Basic "see also" links

If the Find A Grave memorial is not being cited in a source citation, include it in a "See also" section below the sources, like this:

== Sources ==
<references />
See also:
* {{FindAGrave|1234}}

This produces:

The number after the pipe (|) is the memorial number.

Finding the memorial number

The memorial number can be found:

  1. In the URL on Find A Grave, e.g.: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/1234/henri-langlois. In the old Find A Grave URLs it was here: https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=1234.
  2. In a provided source citation: Find A Grave, database and images www.findagrave.com/memorial/1234/henri-langlois : : accessed 13 July 2021), memorial page for Henri Langlois (13 Nov 1914–13 Jan 1977), Find A Grave Memorial ID 1234, citing Cimetière de Montparnasse, Paris, City of Paris, Île-de-France, France ; Maintained by Find A Grave.

Links in source citations

Source citations are formatted automatically by Find A Grave. Look for the "source citation" link near the bottom of the memorial page.

Simply replace "Find A Grave Memorial ID 1234" with {{FindAGrave|1234}}.

Here is an example of link template usage in a complete source citation:

* Find a Grave, database and images (www.findagrave.com/memorial/1234/henri-langlois : accessed 13 July 2021), memorial page for Henri Langlois (13 Nov 1914–13 Jan 1977), {{FindAGrave|1234}}, citing Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris, City of Paris, Île-de-France, France; Maintained by Find A Grave.

The above will display like this:

  • Find A Grave, database and images (www.findagrave.com/memorial/1234/henri-langlois : accessed 13 July 2021), memorial page for Henri Langlois (13 Nov 1914–13 Jan 1977), Find A Grave: Memorial #1234, citing Cimetière de Montparnasse, Paris, City of Paris, Île-de-France, France; Maintained by Find A Grave.

You might include a note in brackets with the citation if there are any limitations, e.g.:

  • [Gravestone inscription is not legible.]
  • [Gravestone does not include a middle name and only includes the years of birth and death.]

Links to family member memorials and other people

The WikiTree+ hints described below will be confused by links to other people's memorial pages inside a profile, such as a link to a family member's memorial page inside a biography, or a link to the memorial page of a person with a similar name inside Research Notes, e.g. if you say, "this is not the same Henri Langlois as on {{FindAGrave|1234}} but they can easily be confused."

In order to avoid this confusion in the WikiTree+ hints use a "sameas=no" parameter in the Find A Grave template like this:

{{FindAGrave|1234|sameas=no}}

Sameas=no will tell WikiTree+ that the WikiTree profile and the Find A Grave memorial represent two different people. This will ensure that there are no future hints or suggestions based on the comparison.

Find A Grave Hints from WikiTree+

When you link to Find A Grave from a WikiTree profile as described above, once a week WikiTree+ will automatically compare the data on the Find A Grave memorial with the data on the WikiTree profile. If there is a discrepancy, e.g. if the Find A Grave memorial has a birth date but the WikiTree profile does not, WikiTree+ will report a hint for you or a "Data Doctor" to investigate.

If a WikiTree+ hint is based on incorrect information on Find A Grave, you can permanently dismiss the hint by marking it as "false suggestion (hide forever)".

If a WikiTree+ hint is based on an incorrect connection between a WikiTree profile and a Find A Grave memorial, you can permanently dismiss all hints based on the connection by using the sameas=no parameter in a Find A Grave template as described above.

Sameas=no should only be used if the Find A Grave memorial represents a different person or contains conflated information from multiple people and a majority of the information represents a different person. It should not be used if the Find A Grave memorial generally represents the same person but contains some incorrect information. It can also be used in case of multiple memorials for the same person on FindaGrave (CENOTAPH, MEMORIAL SITE, need merge on FG, ...) and on pre1700 profiles if the information on FG is incorrect.

In either case, be sure to explain your conclusion in a Research Notes section so that others can benefit from it.

Acronym or Abbreviation for Find A Grave

Find A Grave recommends not abbreviating their name, but when necessary to use FG. Be aware that other acronyms are offensive to some members.

Some members use FAM (Find A Memorial) or FAGM (Find A Grave Memorial).



This page was last modified 20:02, 27 October 2023. This page has been accessed 16,343 times.