How to Locate Your Ancestor's Graves Using Find A Grave
Find A Grave is an easy to use tool for locating the burial places of family, friends and even famous people. With over 67 million names already online, it is an invaluable resource for genealogists and family historians. Find A Grave memorials often contain much more than just death and burial data. You may find photos, biographies, obituaries and more. You might also find others researching the same family lines that you are. Visitors can leave virtual flowers and notes on the memorials they visit. Those notes usually include contact information for the person posting.
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Instructions
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Navigate to the Find A Grave website. To use all the features on the website, you will need a free membership. Click the "Join Now" link to sign up.
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Now that you are a member, you can access the full Find A Grave site. Links will direct you as you look for ancestors' graves or cemeteries. You also can add burial records to the site. The records search form will probably be what you use most. Enter as much information as you can.
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The next page will be a list of matches to your search query. If you get too many, try adding more detail to the search form to limit the search. If you didn't get any hits, try broadening your search terms. Consider searching for variant spellings of the name. If you do find a match to your ancestor, click on the name to open the memorial page.
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Copy the genealogy data you need from the page. Don't forget to cite the Find A Grave web site as your source for this information. Try clicking on the cemetery name that is on the memorial page, then click "View all interments." Now that you have found one ancestor, you might find more family members buried there.
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If you have photos of the people you find, photos of their graves or details about their lives, you can help other researchers by adding them to the site. If you would like to have a photo of the tombstone, click the "Request a Photo" button. Be sure to phrase your request politely and thank the volunteer in advance. There is no guarantee you will get a response, but it is worth a try.
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Tips & Warnings
Contribute to the site whenever you have pertinent information or photos. It is an easy way to say thank you.
References
- Photo Credit Thinkstock/Comstock/Getty Images
