… it really is time to take action
It was two months ago that The Legal Genealogist added this space’s voice to that of others calling for a moratorium on non-family-members posting memorials for the recently-deceased on Find A Grave for at least some time to give the families of those involved a chance to deal with a loved one’s death before some stranger spread the information into a space on the ethernet that the family hadn’t yet occupied.
In A modest proposal, I suggested a 90-day moratorium on allowing strangers to post memorials to the site1 — others have suggested 30 days, even a couple of weeks2 — to give the families of the recently deceased time to come to terms with their loss before an utter stranger is allowed to invade their space by adding a memorial to that website.
Today, we got another reminder of why that website — and its corporate owner Ancestry.com — needs to take action on this. This was posted just hours ago on Facebook:
Now before the Find A Grave apologists begin, let me say that I don’t want to hear that the family and the funeral home should have waited to put the obituary together or they shouldn’t have put sent it to the newspaper in their local area. None of us can know how many people from the local area needed to know of this loss in a timely way, or how much the family needed local support.
And I don’t want to hear that the family should have known that allowing the obituary to be published at all meant that it would be online on the newspaper’s website, or that they should have known that having it on the newspaper’s website would mean it would be scarfed up instantly by some stranger and put on some other website. None of us can know what these folks were coping with, or how familiar they are with the ways of the online world.
I don’t want to hear that maybe the soldier serving overseas wouldn’t ever hear of this loss in this way. None of us can know if he’s a genealogist himself and in touch with other genealogists.
And I definitely do not want to hear that any harm that resulted here was the fault of the family.
None of us can walk in that family’s shoes. None of us can know anything about what they knew, didn’t know, understood or didn’t understand.
What we can know is that no family’s decisions in a time of personal tragedy and grief should have to be made in fear of some stranger sticking his or her nose into their business.
As the poster says, swooping in at a time when the family is struggling isn’t “honoring the person who died or respecting the family at all. It’s just cold-hearted, even if that is not the intent.”
This needs to stop.
Find A Grave? Ancestry? Are you listening?
Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “Hey, Find A Grave,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 7 Oct 2019).
SOURCES
- Judy G. Russell, “A modest proposal,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 5 Aug 2019 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 7 Oct 2019). ↩
- See e.g. Amy Johnson Crow, “How FindAGrave Could – and Should – Be Made Better,” Amyjohnsoncrow.com, posted 21 Oct 2016 (https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/ : accessed 7 Oct 2019). ↩
I can understand why this is a concern, but by far the larger concern is people posting FindAGrave memorials with no sources. So many are wrong and people are using FindAGrave to push their theories with no evidence or sources. People need to be able to post comments that others can see. I have proven many of these memorials wrong, but they continue to be copied into trees. Sigh!
There’s nothing really to be done with bad information except try to post good information ourselves. But this form of grave robbing can and should be stopped.
Find a Grave should not be publishing what are basically obituaries. That is not its purpose. I would think the genealogist has no need to know of a person’s death within a much longer time, months rather than weeks and one year wouldn’t seem unreasonable.
Absolutely agree. how do we stop this? I am furious about this matter. At least a year. It seems to me the the people posting without consent of direct family members are more concerned about the numbers they post .A contest to be rewarded by numbers of deceased that they find to post as there are reward for such actions sickens me. Extremely disrespectful and creepy. Some people have no empathy and evil as with my case. This saddens me that the family has no rights and have to deal with idiots who obviously care only about themselves as a way to draw attention to their own agenda. We can take action, however what rights do families have?
The only thing that’s going to stop this is constant unrelenting pressure on Ancestry, which owns Find A Grave.
Totally agree ~ why do people feel that they have carte-blanche authority to do these things #%#
Jane, just out of curiosity, what is Find A Grave’s purpose?
Find a grave allows a relative of my uncles murderer to maintain my uncles memorial despite my protests to have it transferred to a direct family member. Find a grave is despicable
That’s appalling.
I can’t find my nanny’s grave site to put a marker on for her. Our family didn’t have the means at the time. But I do now and I’d love to know exactly where she is to put it there.
You’ll have to do some good oldfashioned genealogy to try to find out the location.
If you can acquire your nanny’s death certificate, it may contain the name of the funeral home and cemetery.
It would be extremely easy for Find A Grave to disallow a death date less than a certain time in the past, say 2-4 weeks, as is suggested. It would be also easy for them to elaborate on that to allow a memorial creator who wishes to post before then to request information from the creator — proof of relationship or even simply a, “This is my [family member relationship]….” I agree with you 150% here.
It kind of seems like intellectual theft (of some sort)! It’s done with plenty of potential criminal intent. I’m ready to take legal action. I’m having an inhumane struggle with Wikitree right now over something quite similar.
I agree, Judy. Find-a-Grave’s purpose is not to publicize a death. There are other means by which to that. A modest waiting period is easy and appropriate.
I’m so livid about this at this point that if one of these virtual grave robbers argue this with me within arms reach, someone would be posting their memorial. Happened to 3 of my relatives and made me sit down a create a memorial for my Mom they day she died to prevent it from happening to her.
All before the funeral.
It’s find-a-grave not advertise-a-death.
Perhaps we all need to notify Ancestry and FindaGrave over and over and over that this is unacceptable behavior and by allowing such that they are complicit in the egregious disrespect for the family and friends of those deceased. In short, we need to raise a stink about this.
Well said – yet again. I hope someone in management at findagrave will finally listen. There is nothing lost by waiting a few months. Really. For the people who find making memorials an important part of their lives – and bless them for those long-neglected cemeteries and old, old graves – waiting a relatively short time to create a memorial for a ***recent*** death should not be seen as a burden. They can save the information that they think is fleeting and go back to it later.
Maybe findagrave is concerned that they wouldn’t be able to ascertain whether someone is really a relative within a few months of a death, but surely if a contributor has thousands of memorials they manage and are creating new ones frequently, he/she is likely not/not a direct relative.
This happened to my family. I had waited for a few weeks to allow us to absorb the reality of beloved elder’s death. It was quite a shock to go on Find-a-Grave AND FamilySearch and find that a shirt-tail relative who was not even living in the area had posted the information and set up a memorial. She knew that I and another relative had been caring for our elder. AND as pointed out, because she was not close to the family, she got several things wrong. Perhaps she thought she was being helpful, but in reality, what she did was at best thoughtless, and was an act of control and commandeering. It hurt to have this last loving goodbye taken away. The simple act of a waiting period after death by FindaGrave and the various tree repositories would help. But also, perhaps remembering the original purpose of these sights would help. They are meant for us to discover our unknown dead. It’s not a contest, and sadly many people seem to be treating it that way: who can take the most pictures, own the most memorials, get the tree in first. All without consideration of what the family needs.
The original purpose of Find A Grave was to display Jim Tipton’s hobby of visiting famous graves. I’m so tired of people making up crap. A true genealogist doesn’t do that. They RESEARCH and get their facts right. And it is so easy to find the original purpose of Find A Grhave there is simply no excuse for this kind of laziness.
Now tell us how that purpose would be negatively impacted if people who are not family had to wait 30 days before posting death information.
By the way, I vote for at least 30 days. Six weeks would be better. Grief takes a while to even recognize, let alone process. Lets give people the time and respect to do that, and the time to even get to the point they might think of posting on Find-a-Grave. I’ve noticed that often obituaries are not published until weeks after death. People need that extra time.
I think no one should be allowed to post but the family, but I don’t supposed there’s any way to police that…
There are lots of ways to at least slow it down — make someone check their relationship to post within x days of the death AND enforce sanctions against violators, just for starters.
I vote for at least 30 days, and six weeks would be even better. It takes time to even recognize grief, let alone process it. The family should be given the time. I am grateful to people who step up and photograph the stones and give the basic information. One such person provides the only record of the inscriptions in a very old cemetery where many of my ancestors are buried (a “cleaning” gone terrible wrong destroyed nearly all of the inscriptions and even some of the stones). Her effort to document the cemetery and posting the photos and info on Find-a-Grave was truly a gift. Because most of the stones were 200 years old, that would have been lost otherwise. But that is very different from the concern that Judy brought up.
A moratorium on very recent deaths is a great idea. There is someone that creates new memorials at my local cemetery as soon as an online obituary is published, and usually it is before there actually IS a grave. This person copies the complete obit and photo without attribution, which I supposed is another issue.
I have posted a few for a Cemetery that I help to keep records on. But never early. There are people who live for this. Like it is a contest. Some have posted obits from paper or funeral home which is plagiarism I believe. Other just post a lot of incorrect information and then won’t correct or answer emails about them. I have a lady who posted by great grand parents in the wrong Cemetery and would not remove or correct, or answer emails about it. I thought maybe she was dead, but new postings appear from her daily. It really makes me mad.
Judy, what can we do to help?
I’m still livid over someone posting my grandmother’s obituary on FindAGrave before we could reach all family members last November. Give us marching orders–we’ll march.
There isn’t any one thing we can do except speak out. Tell Ancestry. Tell Find A Grave. Over and over and over. Let the corporate folks know this is not acceptable conduct. If that doesn’t work, then — since it’s now in part an advertising-supported site — perhaps telling the advertisers on Find A Grave might work…
Gee, do we need to reserve a space on Find A Grave like we buy our cemetery space?
I actually think that is a GREAT idea and I’ve written it before. I would really like to see Find-A-Grave accomodate ‘pre-need’ obits’ that we could post and stay hidden until someone notifies Find-A-Grave to activate it, at least for contributors.
That said, count me among those who don’t see this as a big deal. I will be contacting Find-A-Grave to let them know that while I would like to see the numbers incentive eliminated, and perhaps the transfer guidelines extended beyond immediate family, I would very much DISLIKE limits on the timing of memorials or who is allowed to post a recent memorial. Very often a person was closer to a friend or to extended family than to immediate family.
I completely agree with this proposal. There is no reason for people who are not close to the deceased or their family to be posting this information so quickly. This happened with my mom as well. It’s one thing if it’s been 6 months or a year, then I feel like it’s no harm to add information, but I just don’t get how these people feel it’s their place to be doing this. To me, it shows a lot of nerve and a sense of entitlement.
Firstly, I couldn’t agree more that the rights of the family should extend to controlling the publication of death notices.
BUT, the real issue seems, to me, to stem from “complimentary” publications by virtually all funeral services companies, on their web sites.
(A clarification: I’m only talking about people who are NOT public figures. When taking an “office” as a public figure an individual must realize they are automatically giving up any rights to privacy, and must proceed accordingly.)
So, unless I have missed something then the enforcement – on funeral companies – of a simple variant of Second Factor Authorisation, requiring them to get the agreement of the individuals employing the funeral company to ANY public exposure of an obituary for the deceased, should stop the non-family scavengers from profiting from the death’s of others.
(Another clarification: Advertising on the Internet has developed a system whereby a major website can reward affiliate websites for any visit to their site resulting from a posting by the affiliate. The reward is very small, per visit, but by causing thousands of ‘hits’ on the major website, and by “feeding” hundreds of major websites, the affiliate can make a comfortable living. (I know this seems unbelievable but it IS happening. It is amazing how much work some people will undertake to avoid more constructive work!)
There is, of course, a “Catch 22” snag in this supposedly simple solution:
In order to force the funeral companies to effectively expend the working time to employ the Second Factor Authorisation there would have to be a law created and voted onto the statutes.
This is unlikely to happen because it is not “sexy” enough to make any politician popular, notorious, or richer!
Further it is probably a State Law issue, rather than a Federal one so it would require 52 laws to be passed and, as popular as genealogy is, its doubtful there is a dedicated genealogist in every State’s legislature who would be willing to sponsor such a Bill.
So, unfortunately, the original question still remains.
I don’t agree. Families should be able to write and publish obituaries for their loved ones without worrying about that information being redistributed by people not in any way associated with the family onto a website in no way chosen by the family. Having the common decency to allow families to grieve in their own way isn’t rocket science, and it doesn’t require that their choices be limited.
Ding, ding, ding- that’s it JGR- the lack of common decency!!
Should the family also have control over the cemetery listings on the free local history/genealogy websites (like GenWeb)?
Those generally don’t get posted within hours of the death or nanoseconds of the obit going online at the local newspaper. It’s not the posting of the info but the timing that’s the issue. If those websites start getting into races with the family, then yes there should be limits.
I believe you mis-understood my post.
I was pointing out that “Second Factor Authorisation” requiring the authorisation of the individual(s) making the “final arrangements” would ensure that no obituary could be posted without the authorization of the person arranging for the burial of the deceased, usually the family.
Second Factor Authorisation is a technique already being employed by many financial institutions in the US, e.g., Banks, to improve the security of online banking. It is proving to be effective in preventing hijacking and fraud in online communications and seems to fit this situation well.
OK, so I only discussed applying the requirement on the funeral company, but I assumed it would be obvious that the same requirement would also have to be applied on ANY organization publishing obituaries publicly, e.g., Newspapers, Websites, FAG, Genealogical societies, etc. I simply didn’t want to fog-up my proposal by trying to include all the legalese and trivia of a fully fledged “Law.”
Please note also that I’m ONLY suggesting this be applied to OBITUARIES. Newspapers, or other information publishers, would still be able to publish factual “notices of death,” as they already do under the claim that it is “News”. So, no question of limiting “freedom of the Press,” just assurance that the public obituary contains the information the “family” wished the deceased to be remembered for.
You’re right, I misunderstood, and thanks for explaining what you meant. I still don’t think anything is essential except common courtesy — which is apparently not common at all.
I’d like to add the milieu, explaining my experience. My husband died early on a Friday morn. Even though it wasn’t a surprise, we wanted the weekend to mellow out from the experience as life had been rather intense.
Sunday I receive a phone call from the weekly paper asking for a quote about my husband. Turns out that in the system of processing my husband’s death with the proper authorities, the funeral home also posted on-line his death. The local papers ALL have their reporters check the regional funeral home websites on a DAILY BASIS. There was no way that I could stop the web publication of his death, even being friends with the publisher. I wanted to tell people about his death, as I wanted them to hear it from ME first. Didn’t happen.
In talking with the funeral home, the website posting process was an automatic thing generated by something else they were doing.
Now, don’t get me going about the pain and agony of dealing with newspapers and placing obits. Something else genealogists should be aware of how things have changed.
I just submitted my (polite) comment to Find A Grave with a recommendation to disable memorial creations within 60 days of death.
Until they change I may go ahead and prepare by writing a few obits/memorials of some of my senior family members so that I can at least control these memorials. Oy…
60 days is not enough time. Six months would be more appropriate. My child died, and I was in shock. Now I find out a grave hoarder whose information claims she is not properly responding to emails has claimed my child and an obituary that was not updated was posted.
I am so sorry this happened to you…
The site is Find A GRAVE, not Find A DEATH. So what on earth are they doing creating sites based on nothing but an obituary, no matter how new or old? If there is not a photo of a grave marker or a line from a cemetery burial record attached, Find A Grave ought not allow the entry to go live. In my opinion of course, and I’m usually wrong.
AMEN!!
I am sitting here in tears reading all of these comments. My mother-in-law died on Friday. On Saturday, I created a memorial page for her with minimal information because I wanted to control what was out there before she is even buried (two days from now!). I checked in today to see that someone had created another page for her complete with obituary and the wrong cemetery! Now I have to deal with this insensitive person (who has listed 89,000 persons in 9 years…clearly this is their full time job!). I want the listing removed…NOT merged with mine! What a mess. Is there no legal recourse at all the keep people from doing this? As a side note about the cemetery mixup. There are two cemeteries in this county with similar (But different) names. One is an older cemetery located about 4 miles down the road from the newer church cemetery. Now I am wondering how many entries this person might have listed in the wrong cemetery. When my father-in-law passed away 5 years ago, he was also listed within hours of the obit appearing…also listing the wrong cemetery!
I am so sorry you too are having to deal with this mess.
Kristina, you should merge the 2, then by giving a small explanation that the other person has the wrong cemetery, it would go into 1 memorial. The correct cemetery always overrides anything else. they would then have to give you the memorial and the other person would have nothing to do with it. you could make any changes from there.
Well what do you purpose to do about cremations? Since there isn’t a grave or a stone? Ban those?
not always- my Aunt Frannie is cremated and buried withe her third husband AND has a headstone
Exactly! People have perverted the intent and purpose of the website into a game they can play. They get to feel like they are ‘helping’ by doing nothing more than sitting on their butts in front of a computer and copying information. If there is no grave yet, and no grave marker, then it does not belong on Find A Grave
Well, as they have explained, there need not be a physical grave; the site is about ‘final disposition’ whether it is burial, cremation, or lost at sea. Personally, I lean the other way, and have requested in the past that they consider allowing memorials for ALL deceased, whether burial site is known or not. Bottom line though, is that it is their site – their rules. And if we don’t like them we can go play in someone else’s sandbox.
I hate that when I family member passes away, I have to create their memorial before it’s published just to avoid this situation. This year my daughter’s great-uncle passed away and I created the memorial before the obituary came out just to prevent this and within hours of the obituary being published someone who does this added his picture from the obit and sent me an edit to add the obituary! I was livid!
I was so moved when I read this yesterday, and still so upset with what happened to me last year, that I couldn’t respond at that time. I’m better this morning! About three weeks after the death of my husband, I realized that I should put his memorial on FAG, since I have an account and manage a few sites there myself. Imagine my surprise, horror and total anger to see that he already had a memorial created! He passed away on October 12th and the information appeared in our city’s newspaper on October 15th. The memorial was created that very day! I had to curtail my anger when I politely asked that person to transfer the site to me – the WIFE! I truly wanted to go off on him. He replied that he did that to help others because most people didn’t use FAG. In looking at his account page, I saw that he had put over 48,000 memorials on FAG. Of those, he still maintained most of them. I choose to believe that he is really doing something good. I choose that because I have to in order to keep from getting livid all over again! Thank you for your rational, and as usual, perceptive, comments on this problem.
I know he believes he is doing something good, Carla. The reality is, it’d be just as good (better in fact) if he did the same thing 30-90 days later.
But someone else would beat him to it.
That’s the issue. As someone said above, it’s become a game to these people.
Exactly. He could wait. But it truly is a game to some. Now that I have your thoughts and words to “lean on,” I will submit that letter of protest to FAG. Thanks again, Judy.
Judy might as well have started this post with “Don’t comment unless you agree with me because that is the ONLY thing I want to hear.”
We went through this last time, and it came down to your unsupported argument that Find A Grave volunteers would stop putting recent deaths online if they were required to wait briefly out of respect for the families. I’m not about to allow that again. You want to make that silly argument again, use your own space to do it.
I agree with Jane Elroy and Find A Grave specifically states there is no time limit on posting memorials. Have you asked them to change the time limit? If so, what was the answer you received?
Just what do you think these posts are, with all the comments from all the people who have been hurt and offended by this practice, if not a request to change the time limit on strangers leaping in to post memorials to the recently-deceased????? I mean, let’s get real here, okay? You want to defend Find A Grave’s policy, do it on your own turf.
Posting here doesn’t mean you have sent a request to Find A Grave itself. I asked if you have and what their response was. The people posting here is a very small fraction of the number of members of the website. Maybe you should get real here, okay?
I am not engaging with you again on this. You two were the sole “oh but Find A Grave’s policy is so wonderful” folks last time, and if you want to argue that again, you can do it in your own space and time.
Judy
I won’t sully your blog writing what I would like to about Glendora, and Jane seems to be her compatriot, but she’s been a **** when it comes to this issue for years.
My husband died unexpectedly 11 months ago, in my arms, on our living room floor. With in minutes of his obit coming out someone put up a memorial. I asked find a grave to take it down, they did, and someone else put up a memorial. HE IS NOT EVEN BURIED, there is NO GRAVE yet. When I bury him I WILL PUT UP THE MEMORIAL. Sorry to shout. To lose him as I did, and then have to deal with this is beyond painful.
I am so terribly sorry for your loss. And, although heartened to hear they took the initial memorial down, saddened that it was overtaken by yet another memorial before you have had a chance to do so.
It’s “Find A GRAVE”, not Ffind An OBIT!!!” Find A Grave/Ancestry needs to stop giving a count of the postings of an individual .. that would stop the contest to rush to post. I really resent the postings that don’t show a grave, headstone, or cemetery photo. And if the policy would stop people from posting, fine with me. I’d rather no info out there than wrong/incomplete info. If there’s no listing, I’ll look further for the information. It doesn’t help me in researching my ancestors to find a grave listing that just repeats the data I’ve found elsewhere but gives me NO INFO ABOUT THE ACTUAL BURIAL SITE!!
My wife died unexpectedly on New Year’s Day. Those first couple of months are a blur. It wasn’t until April that I could bear to open my genealogy software and enter her death date. It was even more difficult than I expected. A few days later, I went to create her memorial on Find A Grave and discovered someone had already created one for her. I sighed with relief because it felt like someone had done it “for me”. It dawned on me that I could have asked one of the genie club members to enter her death date in my genie software.
My condolences on your loss. I’m sure your relief would have been the same no matter if the poster had done it five seconds, five days or five weeks later.
You may be right but there’s no way to know, is there? I’m satisfied with it being done before the funeral. I can’t be the only one who felt relief. I’ll take you up on your encouragement to right Find A Grave, but I will encourage them to keep their rule just as it is.
I’m sorry for your loss. I know you are not the only one to feel relief. I’ve had others contact me to thank me for posting their loved one’s memorial. I’ve always offered to transfer. (I have to clarify, that while in the early days, 15+ years ago, I posted from current obits, I now only do that if I knew the deceased or their family.)
My sister was an extremely private person. In the last weeks of her very difficult and painful illness, she requested that we not publish an obituary but reach out in person to all her friends and family members who needed to know. At the time I was disappointed, since I think an obituary is a good historical record of a person’s life, and a way for people who cared about your loved one but who you may not have remembered to tell to find out about the death and provide comfort and condolences to family members. In the end I think her choice worked out for the best, because I found out we have a self-appointed ghoul for our family cemetery who posts memorials as soon as they appear online, with the entire obituary and any other public information they can find on the person, including personal photos. She would have hated that so much. We buried her urn privately with our own shovels, per her wishes (a positive blessing of a 175 year old family cemetery). Having found out that this person would immediately post something to FG as soon as he found the temporary marker in the cemetery, I made sure to create a memorial before we put the marker up. Now it says what she would have wanted it to say. But if I wasn’t active on genealogy forums and FG I would not have known to do that, and her kids would have had this additional pain to deal with.
I think it should be 3 months after a death before someone is able to post a memorial. This would ensure that all people close to the family are informed, even if they are far away.
Has anyone posted a link to this blog in Find A Grave forums?
Alas, this proposal does not seem to consider the practical aspects of what it would take for Find A Grave to do something with it. For instance:
1) What is the definition of a “stranger” in this proposal?
2) How is Find A Grave supposed to be able to enforce this definition? Especially given its reliance on automated processes and minimal moderation?
3) How could any moratorium be enforced when dates of death are optional on memorials? Not all graves contain date information.
If the answer is “Find A Grave should add more staff to handle this”, that does not seem practical for a free site that is valuable despite its imperfections.
Those are very good points that I don’t think a lot of people consider. To be effective, the moratorium would have to be enforced with programming – no memorial could be created within the waiting period. And that would be across the board, including family members. However, that would require that all memorials be created with a full death date. The death date would have to be UNeditable because a Sneaky Pete could create it with the wrong date to bypass the moratorium and then edit it after the waiting period. I don’t think that would be such a good thing.
The rule doesn’t have to be 100% enforceable in order to be worth doing: Find A Grave could require a death date and a check box when posting within xx days of the death where the poster asserts a family relationship — and anyone who violates that and is caught could be banned. Will it prevent 100% of this? No. Will it prevent most of it? Yes. And that’s worth doing.
Hi Michael, I agree that trying to define who is a stranger or non-family-member is pointless because just not feasible. But programmers of the site could easily program a date of death being entered within 30 days or 60 days (or whatever time period) to cause a message to pop up about why the memorial is being rejected for a waiting period.
About your comment related to death dates being “optional”, they should not be optional. I personally believe that no memorial should be added to FAG unless there is a death date and/or a known cemetery burial or cremation. Anything else seems to go against the purpose of the site.
In general I agree with some type of waiting period for FAG memorials. Personally I have waited up to a year to add someone even in my own family. I think a period of privacy is appropriate for emotional reasons related to feelings of family members, and also I always felt a bit wary of advertising a death.
I understand your reasoning about ‘optional’ death dates, but this may be an issue for older deaths. I know I have pre-1900 burials for which I can barely make out the name on the stone, and then only because I KNOW what I should be seeing. Any year would be a guess. There would have to be a way to accommodate those situations.
My Neice took her life and when her grave was finally set (it had to wait because the ground was froze and money), we tried to add her memoial. Someone we didn’t know had already made one with wrong information and a terrible picture of her. No grave picture because we just now got it. They won’t respond. It’s really frustrating.
I have stopped using FindAGrave. If many stop using the data, there will not be a market for the data.
It didn’t even occur to me until I saw this post today (two days after you published it) that my recently deceased loved one’s information might already be on findagrave. Sure enough, when I checked – there it was – published 17 Sept 2019. Interesting, since we did not have the funeral until a couple of days after that, but the memorial in findagrave was already active. Not respectful in the least. Also, hello, as the genealogist in the family, I really would like to be the one creating the memorial…
Just reading a few of the responses here, I believe it will alter my actions regarding posting an obituary after my next loved one dies. The obituary will not be posted for a few months. Yes, I want that control.
Thank you for leading this fight, Judy. I learned this lesson the hard way back in 2011 when my mom passed away. I was horrified to find out, a day or two after her death in one state but several days before her burial in another, that some ghoul had already posted her info on FindAGrave. She had given us strict instructions to never carve her name on a gravestone until she was actually buried. It never occurred to me I would not be able to honor her request because of a “virtual” grave. Luckily, I was able to immediately obtain management of the “memorial” and remove the info I did not want there, but it was just one more “stab in the heart” I had to deal with at a difficult time.
Another viewpoint sent to me by a friend:
“My good friend that died several years ago. He was homeless and stopped by my shop every day for a visit. One day he asked me to see if I could find any of his family and the first place I looked was find-a-grave. He’s standing over my shoulder looking a the screen. His dad was the first memorial that popped up. By chance, some stranger had posted it the day before. His dad had died a the day before and the family was looking for my friend, the son. My friend had not seen nor knew where his dad was for 25 years.”
My Dad died unexpectedly. Several months after the event, I found some wonderful Find-A-Grave contributor (an older gentleman who I had a very nice exchange with) had created a memorial for my Dad. The gentleman proceeded to share with me given his disabilities, this was the one thing he was able to contribute to the community. He transferred the memorial to me and was very kind.
It feels like this thread is about a binary choice (a black or white issue). I just wanted to contribute the perspective I had based upon the experience from my father that I felt in a world that is filled with dehumanization of people in our culture, media, politics, etc., that I genuinely appreciated that some stranger cared enough to honor my Dad. I did not view it as a binary issue. People are complex, messy, beautiful humans. I saw the older gentleman who created the memorial for my father as someone who cared enough to honor my Dad.
Just wanted to add this perspective. Hope I’m not attacked or bullied for sharing this view.
It’s lovely that you had this experience several months after the loss, and that it was good for you and your family. Clearly, you wouldn’t have been impacted at all by the change others are suggesting, which is only a brief waiting period so that family members have a chance to make their own memorial if they choose to do so.
Another problem is the duplicate merging of grave listings. I published an obituary about my father-in-law on the day he died. I did the same when my brother died in 2017. I put a lot of heart and soul into these obituaries, writing some very meaningful things about these loved ones. Then strangers put their obituaries up on FAG shortly after their deaths. They’d copy and pasted the short newspaper obituaries. The duplicate listings were merged and these strangers got ownership of the obituaries. Everything that I wrote from the heart was gone.
You should be able to get those memorials transferred to you, and then I believe you’ll be able to edit them to add your versions of the obituaries.
But isn’t there still a copyright issue here? So, so many obits being posted on findagrave.com. In this case, doesn’t the newspaper have the copyright for the short obits? And, for Bobette’s original obits, she would have the copyright, correct?
And then there’s all those obits with living people listed….
Whether the newspaper has the copyright depends on who wrote them: many obits are written by family and submitted to the newspapers. Bobette does have the copyright on the ones she wrote; her issue is that hers are the ones she wants on these memorials. And yeah listing living people is an ethical violation for a genealogist, no matter what a newspaper publishes.
What I find truly disgusting, aside from the timing issue, is that even after a memorial is “transferred” to an actual family member, the original photo(s) cannot be removed, and the stranger’s name is always displayed at the bottom as the one who created it.
It is disgusting and sick that some people to have a hobby of making a numbers game out of other people’s pain and deaths.
I am still so very very angry at finding some woman who had never even met my father created his memorial and then was haughty with me about transfering it, when she finally deigned to reply at all. She also took a terrible picture which I had to bury by placing others in line above it, but could not get rid of. Her stupid name still sits, entirely inappropriately, on my father’s page.
I agree with the person who said, let me at one of these vultures and they will need a memorial of their own!
My great aunt Pinky died last Saturday. I forgot to immediately go make her memorial page. Sure enough. It’s already there. I asked for a transfer with a strongly worded message suggesting perhaps they could wait for family members to do this while also grieving. I also linked to your post. So frustrating.
Oh Cari… I am so sorry. I would definitely send a note to the folks at Ancestry in charge of Find A Grave. They need to be reminded of the issue, every single time.
I didn’t realize what Find A Grave was for the longest time and didn’t realize I could manage the memorials. Now after understanding the platform better, I am trying to locate people whom I knew or are related to those I knew (family). It’s disheartening to be denied a transfer by someone who has told me she’s addicted to her work on FAG and who states she is not related to 99.999% of those memorials she manages and replies to the effect “just send me your edits”. My sister’s child is my child but she’s not covered under the 4 generations. My opinion is FAG got this wrong. When a family member asks for a transfer regardless of the 4 generation rule, it should be transferred. Then if the family wants to work out who maintains it after that, so be it. I know there are bad actors, but I can prove my family ties. Simple.
Questions so many questions.
Find A Grave’s FAQ states: Memorials are transferred for direct relatives within four generations. This includes your spouse, siblings, parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.
It further states: If the memorial in question is a direct relative within the four generations to you and the memorial manager is not direct family, then they must transfer the memorial.
Does this mean: anyone within four generations must be transferred but only if they are a spouse, siblings, parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren?
Or does this mean: anyone within four generations including but not limited to a spouse, siblings, parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren?
The reason I ask is, my niece is 3rd generation from me. I was not successful in getting her transferred to me because the manager says it doesn’t matter that my niece is within four generations the guideline says nothing about a niece, just spouse, siblings etc., as listed above.
Depending upon which legal definition you look at the term used by FAG, “Direct Relative means: spouses, parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, children, siblings, nieces, or nephews, whether by blood, adoption, or marriage and in some definitions is limited to 3 generations not 4. Suffice it to say FAG’s guidelines would appear to be contradictory but that isn’t the half of it. The actions of managers leave more to be desired than does the guidelines and that’s saying something.
I don’t know which answer is correct but of course, this begs the question:
Since a manager can choose to transfer any memorial he or she wants and can transfer it to anyone whether related or not, what would motivate a manager to deny the transfer of a memorial where the following exists:
1. The manager is not related to the deceased and knows nothing about their family and relative branches and friends;
2. A direct relative or a party who is otherwise connected to a deceased has reached out and is wanting the memorial;
3. The manager knows that transferring a memorial to someone who is not within the four generations is not a violation/prohibited;
4. The manager knows they run the risk of causing emotional distress to the family etc., by denying the transfer; and
5. The manager knows the transfer of memorials to parties with a connection to them would free up his/her time to work on the other 80,000 memorials he/she already has. I have no doubt that somewhere amongst these 80,000 memorials are deceased who have no one to research them and have no voice but that of the managers. Why not work on them and give transfers to those who are connected with the others?
After being denied my niece’s memorial, the manager messaged me a few days later saying “I’ve found some information on some of your other family in Ancestry. I’ve updated their memorials. Of course, we all know Ancestry isn’t always accurate and neither is the census and other available records. I have proof of that. It’s always better to have family records to work from and family recollection along with public records or records from others. She hasn’t even bothered to tell me who she updated so I can check the accuracy of the updates she made.
In my short time on FAG I’ve grown so sick of “I follow guidelines” She recently said and I’m paraphrasing here: “It’s simpler and less complicated for me to keep the memorials if they’re not within the four generations” and “I’ve walked those hot dusty cemeteries, I’ve done the work and put in the time ” and “family isn’t as good at managing because they get bored”. BS. I’ve just come to realize it’s a power grab. It seems to me some of these managers don’t want to let memorials go. Are these memorials trophies to them? The high numbers are maintained by keeping the memorials and not transferring them. Do the high numbers keep them in power among their peers? Is it a race to be the FAG top dog? I believe most managers entered into this as a labor of love and some still do it for that reason but, some have lost their way. The movie line “My precious” comes to mind because they seem to be coveting your family’s memorials for personal gain.
And simpler for her? It’s inefficient, not simpler for either party. I have to send her the suggested edits, she has to open the request, review it, then accept it not knowing if it’s really right or if a type-o exists without doing research. Then she has to do it all again if I send her a request to fix something submitted in error or when new information is sent. We all know if we manage any memorials it’s simpler to just open the memorial and make the change not exchange information back and forth.
I think the system is broken 🙂
Of course, this is all just my humble opinion.
Oh, and writing “I follow guidelines “ with every interaction as if that’s the reason she can’t transfer the memorial is dumb.
She knows she’s required to transfer within four generations and has FREEWiLL to transfer everything else, to anyone else.
She also said she was reprimanded by other managers for transferring outside of the 4 generations so essentially she Is saying she was bullied so she no longer transfers outside of “guidelines”. Again what does that mean she has freewill to transfer everything!
I really wish someone would weigh in on my legal question regarding FAGs “guidelines” in the prior post!!! 🙂
Answers:
The mandatory 4-generation transfers are only those specific relationships: Great grandparents, grandparents, parents, siblings, spouse/s, children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. All other relationships are not mandatory and the decision whether to transfer or not is left to the memorial manager. Your niece isn’t a direct relative any more than your first cousin is a direct relative.
I’m not sure how Find A Grave is contradicting itself.
While a manager may transfer any memorial to any other member, they are REQUIRED to transfer the aforementioned relationships. Full stop. If they do not transfer one of those relatives to you, there is a process in the Help section to follow.
Have you considered creating a memorial on Ancestry’s true memorialization site, WeRemember.com? You can keep it private or make it public. You can share it with others and they can add to it. You can post far more than 5 or 15 photos to it. Others can post more than 5 photos too!
“Oh just let the Find A Grave people do whatever they want no matter who it hurts because it doesn’t have RULES that require otherwise” really isn’t an answer. And that’s, at bottom, what “have you thought about using another site” is saying…
Actually, I’m suggesting using a site that will not result in hurt feelings whatsoever. WeRemember doesn’t have a limit on how many memorials there can be for the same person so you can create one even if there is already a memorial for the same person. You are guaranteed being able to make the memorial in your own time. Isn’t that what you want?
Not when it leaves the other information there on Find A Grave without the family’s participation or consent. As genealogists we try to live up to the best principles of our field, and our ethical standard — our line in the sand — is not to hurt the living. Allowing these rush-to-record events hurts the living. It needs to stop.
Judy, what other website seeks the family’s participation and/or consent? The GenWeb site for my county adds new burials to cemeteries within the first month after death from the obituary, sometimes within the first week. My mother was added that way. I know of several other counties that are the same. If we can’t add anything without the family’s participation and consent, we need to wait to add non-immediate family members to our online public trees until the immediate family gives their consent. Maybe we should just stop expecting the world to cater to us?
A brief delay to give grieving families time to handle their losses in their own way is simple common decency, not “catering” to anybody. Good grief, whatever happened to just being nice to people — for a few days at least???
She also told me I’ve only created 17 memorials in a year so surely I have other family members I can create memorials for without asking for transfers from her.
Wow! Just wow.
I guess I was reeling from the slap in the face yesterday because I missed this. She also said one of the reasons she doesn’t like to transfer the memorial of someone she’s not related to because:
I have transferred memorials that have no changes to them after the transfer. The person just “wanted their family together”.
Dj I look forward to seeing the answers to all of your questions. I have had ALL of the problems you mentioned with the person that manages every memorial for my family members in two side by side counties. He has refused to make a lot of my edit requests even when I provided documentation. I asked him to transfer a 3rd cousin’s cenotaph to me but he responded in big letters NO! It doesn’t fit FAGs rules for transferring memorials. After his denial, I asked him to please reconsider because my cousin was killed on the USS Rowan during WWII. I told him that I manage his 2nd cenotaph for the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery, as young children he and his brother were sent to an orphanage when their dad was electrocuted in the electric chair and there was nothing the family could do to stop it, that since there are different requirements for different cenotaphs, if there is more than one for the same person, I thought it would be better if one person managed both of them, and I explained that I felt managing his cenotaphs was the least I could do for him since our family wasn’t able to do anything to help him or his brother when they were little boys. His response was a big NO that I only manage 15 memorials and I didn’t create any of them. I explained to him that I only manage my parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and a few that were transferred to me without my knowledge beforehand. I explained that I’m not able to go out to cemeteries to take pictures and create memorials I also explained that I’m not going to create memorials before the person’s immediate family has a chance to and I’m not going to create memorials using obituaries, online notices by funeral homes and use pictures posted online or in newspapers before a person is in the ground… yep he’s one of those people… with almost 40,000 memorials.
Roxie, I am still so moved by your story and his refusal to transfer. Our families are not trophies for someone else. We are connected by heart and soul. I love my family even those I never met who are not in the four generations and those I did who are not in the 4. Like my grandmothers sisters and brothers. I spent as much time with them growing up, maybe more, than with my mom and dad. I so loved them and I’m glad I knew them. Or my niece I helped raise her.
May you be blessed and may you find peace and comfort no matter what happens.
Much love from me friend.
Oh so sad! I get it. I really do and your loved ones are so precious. Your information is very valuable to creating and maintaining these memorials!
I only want family too. Yes you can’t get out but you are being penalized for it. Shame on them.
I don’t think I’ll get any answers because the FAG support line is likely just a customer service person regurgitating the guidelines and isn’t managed by counsel. I really think this requires legal intervention with FAGs counsel clarify and even rewrite the rules for our consumption. Since posting the manager has been working on the memorials I manage and sending me suggestions but she hasn’t transferred my sister’s daughter to her in the meantime. I’m sure her other 80,000 memorials need her voice more than I do. I have family records. Records not in the public domain. In bibles, family accounts of birth and death. Records not burned in a fire when the courthouse burned down. records that predate record keeping.
*clarifying and rewriting
Don’t you think Judy, aka The Legal Genealogist, would have suggested “legal intervention” if that was an avenue that would accomplish the goal? She’d probably tell you there isn’t any grounds for “legal intervention” because of the site’s Terms of Use. You might want to read her explanation of Terms of Use at
https://www.legalgenealogist.com/2012/04/27/a-terms-of-use-intro/
I posted a while back and thought I’d follow up. The lady who said she can handle family memorials better than family and that is why she doesn’t transfer them never transferred my sisters husband to her. I had to ask her again after 30 days.
Also, she creates my aunts memorial and she created it from an obituary since there wasn’t a headstone. So her justification that she walks the hot dirty cemeteries and deserves to keep the memorials because she walks the hot dusty cemeteries is another ruse to keep her numbers up. Shame on these people.
*created *aunt’s *dusty
LOL
LOL*created *aunt’s *dusty
Lilli you seem upset by my post and I apologize for that.
I understand Terms of Use and have spent 40 years managing legal resources for my employer with the primary focus being regulations and contract law. I’ve even written a commercial real estate contract with supporting documents from scratch. Yep no template. From scratch. I’m not an attorney therefore my counsel and I finalize the document before it goes into production…but I’m no idiot and my opinion has not changed. Find A Grave has issues and they have the power to correct them. That was my point. Find A Grave should enlist their legal dept. to help adopt better and clearer policies. My company enlists my dept. to review corporate policies and procedures annually and my dept. recommends edits and updates based on prevailing factors. We’re always trying to improve and draft clear and concise policies so that in the event they are challenged we have a strong posture. We also want our policies, procedures and platforms (like Find A Grave) to evolve for customer service and satisfaction.
But thank you for offering the link. I’ll read it.
I agree, it needs to stop. I lost both parents in 2020. They were barely cold before “strangers” started making find a grave memorials. I had no idea of course, not until months later when I thought I’d make a memorial myself for my parents. I’m a only child, the last of my family. I do think it falls on ME to do these things, and I think people who have taken it upon themselves to interfere like this should have really bad things befall them. They are horrible, and completely selfish, and inconsiderate jerks. I’ve have been put thru hell by, not one, but two of these weirdo who think it’s their job to post memorials on complete strangers. One even had the never tonight to send ME an edit request. I about had a nervous break down. My parents are hardly dead. I’m mourning hard, and this stranger “TELLS” me where my Father is buried?!?!!? OMG. #1 He is not buried, he was cremated. #2 this stranger tells me he will keep stalking my grand parents graves until my Dad’s marker shows up so he can then take a photo. I informed him there will be no marker, and no need to keep stalking. These people are way over stepping the bounds, and need to remember they are NO ONE. I am the daughter, step the F off. As you can see, I’m very upset. As the bereaved, am I really expected to suffer these fools????? Does find a grave think this helps loved ones????? I’d like to sue them, anyone else????? This has put me through so much mental anguish I can’t begin to explain. A waiting period of at least a year is in order for strangers posting memorials. I feel violated in the most profound way one could be, and I really hate these people who think it’s there job to post other people memorials. They cut and paste the obituary, that I wrote!!! right out of the news paper. Unreal. I’m totally God-Smacked, and I hope the God smites these freaking people. They are intrusive, and they are causing a lot of needless pain to the most vulnerable people while undergoing the worst time of their entire lives.
I’m so sorry you have to deal with this.
My grandfather wasn’t even in the ground and hadn’t even been dead for 24 hours and a stranger thought it was okay to post the entire obituary on find a grave. They refused to transfer. I am beyond belief pissed. I cannot even have my family member buried. This has happened three times in the last YEAR to our family. These people are horrible human beings.
So my dad’s brother died in a nursing home during the beginning of Covid. I wrote the obituary. I thought I’d open a Find-a-Grave after we were allowed to have his funeral. But someone did it immediately. They even used the photo I had put on the funeral home’s memorial. I had taken that photo. I wish they had scaled it down better–the FG owner did a poor job.
We had a really kind lady helping us at the funeral home , which has given me an idea. What if funeral homes, by default, posted to Find-a-Grave, just a basic name/date/cemetery and then transferred the account to the family to complete it later?
Beat these guys at their own game? Is there a reason in the guidelines that they can’t?
This just happened to me. Within days of my mother’s death, some unknown person posted a memorial for my mother in Find A Grave. I was upset, but I remembered this blog post, so I came here to comment.
At least the other person transferred control to me.
Both Find A Grave and Family Search is nothing more than a bunch of lonely, sad and uninformed so called genealogists who have nothing better to do than to irritate the living. By all means do your own families but leave others alone. It’s a little something called respect.
I absolutely agree with this blog post. Find-a-Grave needs some type of waiting period before total strangers post information. When my father died a few years back, I was planning to wait a few days before creating his memorial. When I went to Find-a-Grave, a memorial had already been create. I was furious. Then I began looking at the creation times, compared them to email traffic from the funeral home regarding his obituary, posting dates on the newspaper website and funeral home website and discovered his memorial had been created BEFORE any information was publicly available. I was beyond furious to know that someone from the funeral home had either created his memorial or shared information with a vulture from Find-a-Grave!
I voiced my displeasure and concern with the funeral home several weeks after dad was cremated. Then I asked the person who created the memorial to transfer it to me. She refused! After several more emails, she finally agreed to delete the memorial explaining that she didn’t want to “mess up” her “extensive list” of memorials she has created. While this infuriated me, I agreed to her deleting the memorial (which included the flowers left by some family friends) and I created a new memorial for him.
As a result of this debacle, I keep my Find-a-Grave ID/password on my cell phone. When my mom dies, I intend to create her memorial prior to contacting the funeral home to ensure I control it.
The other thing that annoys me about Find-a-Grave is the memorial creators who want to argue with me when I submit correct information for relative’s memorial pages. I always explain my relationship and why I know the information is correct and offer proof. Some of the vultures have flat out told me they don’t care if my information is correct, they are not updating the memorial they created.
While I still use Find-a-Grave, their attitude towards grieving family members is appalling.
I made two findagraves for close friends of mine that died recently. I couldn’t bare the thought of a stranger making them. Within days (I made them before the obits were published) their photos from their obituaries were on the findagraves I made. What do these strangers get out of doing this? I doubt they will ever visit these people’s memorials or even think about them again. One of the findagravers also made one for a family member that is still alive and well. I wrote to her that she should delete it until that person is dead but she ignored me. I really hate findagrave because of this but at the same time, there is valuable information from my ancestors that died a very long time ago.
The day before yesterday when I got home with the photos of my parents’ newly-placed stone at a national cemetery, I was shocked to find that someone else (a stranger) had already put my parents’ gravestone photos with the memorials on FindaGrave. Why would someone do that? I was quite upset. I sent a (calm) message to the person who did that, and then hardly slept that night. Thankfully, the other person removed the photos early the following morning. So, I was then able to upload my photos. I already had to ask this same person (again, a stranger) to turn over control of my parents’ memorials to me, as she had made them last month. Apparently, having control of the memorials made no difference, as far as adding photos to the memorials.
Something must change at FindaGrave!
Findagrave discourages obituaries added to memorials (or so they claim) and do not enforce the same, unfortunately this practice continues in an inappropriate light.
Volunteers are in a contest to add as many memorials as possible, and fulfill as many photo requests as possible.
This fact contributes to inaccuracy.
For instance, a photo request is made although the memorial manager has the memorial in the wrong the cemetery, a volunteer finds the cemetery and photographs the headstone just to chalk up another fulfilled photo request, without notifying the memorial manager of the mistake because it takes to long to do so.
If a Findagrave volunteer was charged a fee to add each memorial or each image, accuracy would most certainly improve.
Getting to fulfill as many photo requests as possible would be an absolutely wonderful thing. It’s getting out and walking those cemeteries and photographing the stones that we all treasure the Find A Grave volunteers for. Swooping in on the grief of the living, not so much.
My cousin very recently and tragically passed due to gun violence at age 18 I don’t get to go to the funeral due to being in another state. This was gonna be my way of morning him and sharing how amazing he was.I also handle the family tree and According to the volunteer who made him a memorial I don’t qualify as a close enough relative to have the memorial transferred. I don’t have involvement in my mother’s side of the family all I have is my dad’s side it was his only sibling he has left living with kids My auntie who lost her grandson.my cousin the only daughter of my auntie the woman who is godmother to my son ,lost her son my little cousin but I’m not a close enough relative according to find a grave and its volunteer. I can’t believe someone who doesn’t even know my family can do this. So I made my own and I’ll report hers as a duplicate.
I stumbled across Find A Grave several years ago and was initially aghast to find my relatives graves “managed” by random strangers. I quickly sponsored all my direct relatives’ memorials and made requests to take them over. Only one user agreed to transfer. I didn’t pursue at the time. I only use the site on rare occasions so I was again surprised to see how much worse it’s gotten since my first encounter. My living mother-in-law has a page. She’s horrified! Especially since her husband’s death was early and unexpected. She’s in no rush to join him. But I’ve made several requests to have direct relatives and wife’s direct relatives (she’s not on the site) transferred to me. Very few seem to honor these requests and Find-A-Grave doesn’t seem to care. And some of these mega-users have hilariously self-important bio pages. They humble-brag about what a labor of love their work is while just a few paragraphs later, they pre-emptively chastise anyone who is pondering contacting them without providing content that meets their exacting standards of verification. Nevermind that 99% of the time, they have grabbed an obit from a website that may or may not have accurate information. Not to mention the users’ own typos or other issues. I’ve spent over twenty years trying to correct a gross misspelling of one of my great grandparent’s names that got promulgated by a genweb user.
It’s the gamefication of peoples’ deaths, graves, and obituaries. It’s is just ridiculous.
“It’s the gamefication of peoples’ deaths” — you got it.