Show your corporate ethics, do the right thing
The Legal Genealogist has run out of words.
I could give you the list from the thesaurus: aghast, appalled, confounded, disgusted, dismayed, horror-struck, nauseated, repelled, repulsed, revolted, scandalized, shocked.
None of them comes close to the feeling I had — and still have — knowing that the ghouls of Find a Grave couldn’t even wait until the blood had congealed in Uvalde before upping their stats by adding the deaths of nineteen fourth graders and two teachers. And not even until the headline ink was dry before adding the husband of the one teacher who died of a heart attack after his wife perished in the latest of our seemingly-unending string of mass school shootings.
Here’s an example — screen-captured by a Twitter user and posted there — edited to blur out the personal info about the deceased:
And this one, Ancestry, is on you.
Your corporate morality. Or lack thereof.
Your corporate ethics. Or lack thereof.
Your decisions on how you are — or are not — willing to play nice with the genealogical community and uphold its highest ethical standards.
This one, Ancestry, results solely from your corporate choices.
And you need to do better.
Right now.
For years now — literally years — members of the genealogical community have demanded that Find a Grave close the door on strangers who haunt the news sites and online obituaries to create memorials for people who have just died.1
For years, we have asked Ancestry to stop incentivizing this behavior by reporting the statistics: the numbers of memorials created by total strangers, not reporting on actual graves of genealogical interest, but the obits that hit the online news sites at midnight.2 In other words, making a game out of the deaths of people whose families haven’t even come to terms with the deaths yet… and haven’t had time to even think about a site like Find a Grave, assuming they even know about it.
Earlier this year, Find a Grave initiated a new system that was supposed to ameliorate some of this. Under the new system for the posting of memorials for the “recently deceased” (defined as anyone who has died within the past year), anyone — including the total strangers who haunt the funeral home and newspaper websites at midnight each night waiting for new death notices to be posted — could still create a memorial for a person recently deceased. Only limited information was to be displayed for three months if the person creating the memorial wasn’t a family member.
Some of us — like yours truly — didn’t think it went nearly far enough.3 I for one thought there were holes in the policy.
I didn’t know about the biggest one.
Turns out that Find a Grave only made that rule effective on the web-browser-based platform. People using the mobile app could get around the rule entirely.
And they did. Adding those 19 babies, their teachers, and the husband of one of those teachers. Even adding the shooter.
Full information. And even photos from news articles and/or social media. (And yes that’s a copyright violation.)
Racking up their personal stats, with no connection to these families whatsoever.
It hit the genealogical community like a gut punch. As I said, I ran out of words: aghast, appalled, confounded, disgusted, dismayed, horror-struck, nauseated, repelled, repulsed, revolted, scandalized, shocked. I used every one of those words, and some that can’t be repeated, in a private meeting with some Ancestry folks at the National Genealogical Society conference in Sacramento. And all we knew then — all the Ancestry folks could tell me — was that those in charge of Find a Grave were considering what to do.
We soon found out. An email came out several hours after that meeting signed “Katrina, Senior Manager, findagrave.com”:
We appreciate your comments and feedback regarding the memorials created for the victims of this senseless tragedy in Uvalde. We thank you for your time and are following up with this response.
Our hearts go out to the grieving families and community of Uvalde. In the face of this senseless tragedy, we are especially sensitive to the role our platform – and our community – plays in memorializing and honoring those who have passed.
Our Find a Grave community has created more than 200 million memorial pages and each comes from a place of caring and the desire to be of service at a time of deep sorrow.
We are committed to listening to our users and proactively engaging the community to continuously improve our experience. We did that recently and updated our site to limit the information shown on a recently deceased memorial for three months. We are working to extend this same experience to our mobile app.
As a community-driven site, Find a Grave will continue to strive to balance the diverse perspectives of our users.
In other words, “Thoughts and prayers.” Or, “Nope, we’re not gonna do anything, really.”
Yes, these particular memorials have now been marked as covered by that policy. But they’re still there in that “limited” form: name, age, date and place of birth, date and place of death. There’s no reason for that information to be on a genealogical website today. Added in each case by a stranger who knows nothing about the family and what the family might want — or not want.
Making those subject to the policy isn’t going to stop it from happening again. Not in the next mass shooting. And not in the individual case of the individual death where an individual grieving family isn’t given the time to make its own decision on how, when and where it wants that death reported.
It has to stop.
There is no question that Ancestry could stop this, right now:
• It could close that mobile app back door this minute.
• It could refuse to allow anything to be posted for 30-60-90 days unless the poster is family.
• It could refuse to allow anything to be posted about a child’s death for at least a year unless the poster is close family.
• And it could stop rewarding the ghouls by letting them play the numbers game. Showing how many memorials someone has created does nothing but feed the frenzy to up the stats and beat out everyone else — no matter who gets hurt in the process.
The fact that Ancestry has thus far refused to do it means we’re not being heard the way we need to be heard.
So let’s try some different way.
Let’s go to the top.
Deborah Liu is the CEO of Ancestry. Her LinkedIn profile is https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborahliu. Her Instagram account is https://www.instagram.com/debliu_/. She can be reached by regular mail at Ancestry’s corporate headquarters at 1300 West Traverse Parkway, Lehi, Utah 84043.
If you think Find a Grave can do better, let her hear from you.
Politely but firmly.
If that doesn’t work, well, Ancestry has a Board of Directors. And investors. And…
Understand clearly, Ancestry.
We will not be silenced.
This is entirely on you.
We’re going to speak up until, somehow, you can hear us.
Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “Ancestry, this one’s on you,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 31 May 2022).
SOURCES
With permission, image credit to Amy Dunn.
- See e.g. 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 30 May 2022). ↩
- See ibid. ↩
- See Judy G. Russell, “Change at Find A Grave,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 11 Jan 2022 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 30 May 2022). ↩
AMEN!
Thank you, Judy.
Well said, Judy. This is all on Ancestry!
Well said, Judy! Let’s hope they hear us.
Question. Would it be a good idea to ask them about why they allow profiles to be made if there is no death date on a stone? That really annoys me. My great-aunt has a profile on the site and she’s alive at 99. I tried to get it transferred but nothing happened. He allowed other edits, though. But, yea she’s still alive….
It’s certainly one of many issues that ought to be addressed. None of them should be hard to solve… it just takes corporate will.
I had the same issue with my (still very much alive) Mom. Fortunately, I was able to get the entry about her deleted, and the one for Dad transferred to me. It appears that the original poster has sole discretion over whether or not ownership is transferred, which is another huge hole in the process.
There are rules that say which memorials MUST be transferred… but it can be a struggle. A friend whose husband died more than two months ago is still fighting this battle, even though the rules say it MUST be transferred right away.
Good question since they state in their rules that living persons are not to be mentioned and to be sensitive to the family. I guess it’s going to take a massive lawsuit before some changes are made!
I had the same issue with a first cousin of my father’s (my first cousin, once removed) who is 93 and very much alive. Someone had created a memorial for her, but with no date of death, because her husband had passed away some years ago and her name is engraved on the headstone with her date of birth waiting for her when her time comes. I had to try contacting the person who created the memorial several times. I think finally I was successful when I found an email address for her and used that instead of the internal Find-A-Grave messaging system. But, I was able to get her to delete the memorial.
Judy, I requested that the accounts of some family members be transferred to me. Some did it within days, some did not. I reported the ones who were not transferred. Find a Grave took several months (I’m not sure how many maybe 5-6 months?) but they did send me an email last week saying that they would be transferred to me.
Thank you for enunciating our outrage, Judy!
If they don’t “get it” from this post, they never will.
Well done, Judy. Well done.
I do not believe that your words are serious enough for action
They will continue to operate in this despicable manner until they are required to change
There is no realistic way I can see to “require” them to change — except in response to their customers’ opinions.
A few years ago, a plane crashed into a home killing a mother and child. The house was still smoldering. Sure enough, a neighbor who knew their names posted on findagrave before the husband and father knew what happened.
Why did I check? Because I’d seen this happen before and just knew it would happen again.
I notified ancestry much like what I’ve written here. Ponting out it’s called findagrave and not findatragedy. Heard zero back.
I’ll admit it, I messaged the ghoul directly and forcefully.
I was so angry that I created a placeholder when my husband was terminally ill. Completed it after he passed away.
Thank you for writing this. I hope someone is listening.
Yeah. I plan on creating the memorial when my 90+ yo parents pass … BEFORE leaving the bedside.
I used to love taking pictures for Find a Grave to help people with requests, but now it feels icky. I want to help others, but the behaviors of the people who create memorials by scanning the obits has always struck me as gross. Composing a letter to the CEO today to let her know this isn’t okay. Thank you for expressing this so well!
I am absolutely dumbfounded by Ancestry’s silence on all this.
Judy, absolutely, totally agree. Katrina’s (Findagrave’s senior mgr) reply was typical and disgusting mealy-mouthed Corporate Nothing!!! Ancestry could stop this in One Day, One Hour and Should.
Judy,
Can I have your permission to copy the post on Find-a-Grave and forward it – and ask the receivers to forward it again?
Often times, people read their email, but don’t click on links near as often. I’d like to copy your post and send to my Genealogy group which has 50 members, many of whom are members of other genealogy groups.
Please reply to my email if I can.
Thanks,
Tony
Fjelldalen Slektforskningflubb (Sons of Norway Genealogy Club)
Yes, you absolutely may forward this and copy this (and this is blanket permission for any reader). Let’s get the word out.
And if one is going to write to Ancestry, remember their mantra is that Find A Grave has its own structure, and its own way of doing things. Ancestry needs to stop using that as an excuse for inaction on this matter.
It is a corporate property. Ancestry is responsible for it. Its actions reflect on the entire corporation. Ancestry better get its head around that fact.
My 91 year old father died two weeks ago. About 10 days later, I got up at midnight to make the memorial before someone else did. This happened 2 years ago with my brother. There was already a memorial with the published obituary but when I indicated I was the child, it immediately became mine. I wonder if people who work at the cemeteries are doing this?
No. That’s the change they made in January….that they made in response to the hue and cry of those like Judy.
Doesn’t it seem the genealogical community is not upholding the highest ethical standards? Those that make the posts, are they not members of the genealogical community?
Many of them are NOT genealogists — not researchers at all. It’s a game for them.
While many, including myself, are not genealogist or researchers, I feel I am a member of the genealogical community, and I wonder if most feel the same way. I too, get frustrated with people posting things for many reasons. I just remind myself that these free resources have been helpful and I just can’t help to think of C.S. Lewis and the fish that complained about the water being wet. I struggle to find any real personal injury when I find inaccurate information or when someone posts something that I thought was mine to post first, therefore I am a bit confused by the level of outrage described here, but we are all different and have our own thresholds and every right to express ourselves.
The issue here is that there is known demonstrable repeated hurt being caused by these postings — and no genealogical value whatsoever in the short term. Nothing posted today on Find a Grave with respect to one of these deaths is of more genealogical value than it would be 30-60-90 days (or a year) from now. If that isn’t enough to change the rules, I don’t know what is.
Phill Campbell, I completely agree with your second comment.
A game? Its not a game people volunteer their time to walk through big and small up hills and down hills to record every person in the cemetery. They give their time to do grave look up and take photos for family that will never be able to visit the grave side. It is not a game! It is a hobby and done by people who volunteer their own time. Its a hobby that some seem to feel the more memorial numbers they have the better. That is what you mean by game, well please don’t lump us all up in that category. Judy you would possibly have better luck trying to get Ancestry to take the number count of how many memorial count being displayed to all. I doubt they will ever really change their policy officially.
The problem is NOT the volunteers who actually go to cemeteries, walk the grounds and photograph the stones and information of genealogical and historical interest. It’s with those who sit online at midnight and record yesterday’s deaths. It’s unfortunate that the hard working volunteers get tarred with the same brush — but that’s something Ancestry could fix the same way.
This happened to me when my husband recently passed. It took me a couple of weeks to look but, sure enough, someone had created a memorial that had many mistakes (said he was buried at the local veteran’s cemetery for example. He wasn’t, we just had a memorial service there). Luckily, I was able to immediately transfer management to me and made the many changes needed. But why should I have to do that at that time of grieving? I’m just happy I knew enough to even check for it. I will admit, I use Find A Grave all the time and I’m grateful for the information that is there. I just don’t think non-family members should be able to post for a long, long time.
So sorry you (and so many others) had to deal with this.
Several years ago I was just looking around through genealogical sights and came across my father’s information on Find-a-Grave, put there by someone I had never heard of and with incorrect information, the worst being a photo and name of his “wife” which was nothing like my mother looked or her name- – -and it wasn’t taken from his obituary because it had the correct information!!!! I found the name and contact info of the woman who had put it online. I contacted her immediately and asked her to take it down and never to put any information about anyone with that last name again!! She did take it down immediately and I haven’t seen anything else from her. But I was furious that anyone thought it was OK to do that!!
Bad enough that people rush to post — you’d hope they’d at least get the basics right. Sigh…
Amen! Please let me know what Lower Bucks Genealogists and the Heritage Hunters Podcast can do to help, Judy.
Speak up! Get members and listeners to contact the Ancestry CEO (address is in the blog post) and demand change now.
Thank you Judy for your leadership on this issue. I’ll be writing Ancestry, too.
I know from my old Star Trek petition days … one letter carries more weitht that a petition with a thousand names. As tempting as it is to forward this awesome post to them, do NOT boiler-plate a reply. Use your own words.
I assume that sharing an @Ancestry.com email would be considered doxxing. If you use the feed-back form … always select **other** as the subject. That all but forces somebody to read the feedback.
It is a good thing I was not at that meeting … and probably moreso for me than them. I can cuss a blue streak when circumstances demand it. I would have spent a years worth of spoons on them.
Actually, there is a way we /can/ force them to change.
DROP. YOUR. SUBSCRIPTION.
NOW.
They will notice the revenue drop.
Completely agree, when cancelling your subscription they ask why, therefore if everyone gives this wholly inappropriate behaviour as the reason they will have to act, otherwise their business folds.
May we share the photo with appropriate credit? Im thinking of an Instagram post.
I believe the Twitter user would allow it; it was posted publicly.
Before Find A Grave was sold to Ancestry.com, I was searching for a memorial that was supposedly in a cemetery at Theropolis, WYO. I had requested a photo of the stone hoping to verify dates but was told by the photographer that the cemetery did not exist. The people buried there did not exist or were in other cemeteries. Rumor was that people were paid for large numbers of memorials so people just made up their own and nothing was ever verified.
Marcia, whoever told you that was, in a word, lying. No one was ever paid for creating entries on Find A Grave. Now, BillionGraves does have a “reward system”….
My younger brother died unexpectedly last year and I told my daughter I had to at least get some basis information on Find A Grave. I didn’t want someone who didn’t know him writing his memorial. I honestly felt so guilty- because I thought it was selfish of me to think that. But I did it anyways.
Thank you for saying exactly what needed to be said. I will be contacting Deborah Liu and voicing my thoughts.
I did the same for my brother, I felt bad but I knew from experience, if I didn’t, someone else would.
I respectfully disagree, and don’t see anything wrong with this. Yes, the shootings were horrific. But it is the job of historians and genealogists to document facts, the good, the bad, and everything in between. Value judgments about what’s appropriate and what’s are personal opinions. If you don’t feel something is appropriate to post, then you’re free to not post it or to not look at what others post. But you’re not free to restrict someone else’s freedom, within the website’s terms of use, based on your personal opinion of right and wrong. If you insist on looking at them anyway, discussing them, complaining about them, then you’re intentionally re-inserting yourself in the issue, rather than respecting your own opinion that you don’t want to see them there.
This is one way that people can memorialize those who were lost. If a family member wants to maintain the memorial, a mechanism is setup for them to take it. If not, at least someone took time to create the memorials, documenting history for future generations. A very tiny fraction of the human population are Findagrave users, and so if we wait for only family to post memorials to the recently deceased, most will never be posted.
Again, if you don’t like them there, you are free to not look at them, or to not use Findagrave altogether.
Find a Grave is supposed to be a genealogical website, not a “record the news the instant it happens” website. It is owned by Ancestry, a genealogy company. There is no genealogical purpose whatsoever to be served by racing to post this data on this website. The “gimme my stat” people will still post to get their stats if they have to wait a brief time to allow the families some room for their grief and their own decision making.
Judy – incorrect. Reading the Findagrave “about” page and help pages, they say absolutely nothing about genealogy, but is “the best place on the internet to look for burial and other final disposition information”. It is often used by genealogists, but that is not the primary intended purpose.
And the “gimme my stat” claim, while this may be true for some users, you do not know this for the specific user(s) who posted the memorials in question. You’re making an allegation solely based on a guess. Genealogists in other contexts only use documented facts, and avoid guessing.
There’s always one apologist who enters these threads.
It is your blog and those of us that disagree with you usually choose to keep our peace. However, this time I respectfully disagree with you. Ancestry owns Archives.com, Newspapers.com, Fold 3, Find a Grave and other sites which are useful to genealogists but not necessarily a genealogy website in the strictest sense of the word.
From the Find a Grave website:
“ Our goal
Find a Grave’s mission is to help people from all over the world work together to find, record and present final disposition information as a virtual cemetery experience.”
As far as the Find a Grave website vs the app, I just discovered that backdoor on the app yesterday when in my local cemetery. Please remember these are two different programing issues. The codes for these sites are different with different procedures/protocols. It probably not easy to deal with Apple getting upgrades approved or even a complete re-write.
The original roll out for restricting recent deaths gave me major heart burn. I use Find a Grave to track veterans’ deaths in my local county for use at Memorial Day, Veterans Day and WAA wreath day. If you don’t want your loved one on Find a Grave, don’t post grave information in the local newspaper or on the funeral home website. But also don’t give that volunteer that DOESN’T puts that flag or wreath on your veteran’s grave grief if you don’t identify him/her as a veteran.
While I find the Twitter post offensive, I also find the media the real ghouls. These families need peace and support and we don’t need to know all the details.
And another one…
Mary Shearer I just have to say well said and I agree with you!
Mary Shearer, well said. I completely disagree.
I have to say, with the gnashing of teeth, wringing of hands, vitriol, and hue and cry over memorials being created (I don’t care who by) to remember and record the final disposition of the deceased, my recommendation to Ancestry would be to completely take down the entire website and remove the ability to see ALL memorials created for honor the deceased since the creation of the website.
And, I’ll just sit back and watch with amusement, the same people, who are wringing their hands because a memorial was created, now whining, complaining, gnashing their teeth, wringing their hands, etc., etc. because now they no longer have single easiest low-hanging fruit with which to jump start their research.
And, Judy, how disrespectful to label those that disagree with your point of view/stance as apologists.
Mary Shearer and Tracy L Meyer, thank you both for speaking up, in spite of being tarred with the vitriolic “apologist” brush, by someone who has merely taken up a cause.
(Although I doubt this comment will ever see the light of day.)
“(Although I doubt this comment will ever see the light of day.)”
Really…
Yes, really. You have a tendency to not allow a lot of dissent.
You’ll have to forgive me but that’s just hilarious. I own this website. I pay all the bills. I don’t take advertising. You Find a Grave apologists flood the site every single time I post on this issue because you don’t want to be inconvenienced by rules of decency. I let you spout off almost to a fare-the-well — but I’m the one who doesn’t allow dissent. Right.
Judy, what’s hilarious is your denial of reality, by claiming “Find a Grave is supposed to be a genealogical website”. When two people rightfully pointed out that is not true (according to Find A Grave itself), you couldn’t admit they were correct that Find A Grave was never “supposed to be a genealogy site”. Not being able to accept that fact is the crux of the problem.
You can continue to deflect as much as you want. The fact is that as early as 2001, it invited people to “Find the graves of ancestors.” It is now an ANCESTRY-OWNED property, and Ancestry described it in its acquisition as a “cemetery database” and “an invaluable resource for genealogists, history buffs and cemetery preservationists.” It has long since ceased to be the private playground of those who would do things like post “memorials” to the children who died in Texas at the hands of an escaped convict after the family pleaded for privacy.
I respectfully disagree with you, Ray. FindaGrave says it in the title. It’s to report graves, not news as soon as it happens. She’s not saying “don’t allow anything to be posted”. She merely said there should be a time frame to give the family a chance to bury and grieve for their loved one(s) and to let other family know and grieve. 6 months to a year after death seems reasonable. If there’s no post by the end of that time then anyone can create one. The situation for the families in this instance is horrible and will take time for all family members to be informed. Finding out on FindaGrave that a loved one has passed away but isn’t even buried yet would be a horrible nightmare.
The people who created the ‘memorials’ should be ASHAMED!!! And if the ITs can’t figure out a way to protect the families by not allowing the memorial postings, they need to find BETTER ITs.
This is COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY!!!
Thank you Judy for so eloquently expressing the outrage of our community.
Go Judy! Appreciate you taking the time to support those suffering more than necessary.
Thank you, Judy, for saying what needs to be said!
The idea that the Find a Grave grief collectors would take advantage of the Uvalde tragedy is sickening, but there they go again!
I would particularly like to call out the ghouls who haunt the national cemeteries in the US. I spent a sleepless night not long ago after discovering that one of those ghouls, a total stranger, had created a memorial for my mother. Fortunately, I was able to get control of the memorial.
I’ll be writing a letter to Ancestry.
Sent Ms. Liu a message and will write to her too! Flooding the organization with letters, emails, posts is a great idea! I’m linking to your post too, Judy, on my social media – this MUST stop. Thank you for typing what we all felt – I wish I’d been in that meeting with Ancestry … adding my voice to so many others. Thank you!
Thanks for bringing this long-standing problem to light. This is such an affront for these families going through this. I’ve written an email to Ms. Liu and hope enough of us do so to make a change.
Thank you for posting this!!!!! I have every intention of writing Deborah Liu and filing my own complaint about allowing this practice to continue. I was a victim last year of these ghouls who posted the death of my mother–from an obituary–BEFORE she was even buried (which took place 4 months later after her cremation)! When I went on to the site to enter everything I was SHOCKED to find someone had already done such–and a different person then re-posted my photo that was attached to my father’s memorial and had no reference to my mother’s death. It took me over two weeks to get the memorial transferred to me, and to get the photo removed, after I continuously haunted those two individuals. They didn’t even know what site I was referring to! THIS NEEDS TO STOP!
No cemetery staff person would do this. Unless of course, they are a Find A Grave poster doing it on their own, not with cemetery approval.
Dawn Carline, there are small rural cemeteries that are using Find A Grave as their “online cemetery directory” because they have neither the money nor the personnel to create their own. The cemeteries post the information as soon as the arrangements have been made; in other words, before the burial.
Sent my comments to Deborah Liu via Instagram. Thanks for the links to her. Going to the top is the right answer. Enough is enough!
Ring the bell, shout from the mountaintops, whatever it takes to activate us to stop this heinous practice. Thank you Judy, I appreciate you.
Thank YOU, Ray Gurganus!! You are the only person responding with a lick of good ol’ common sense.
Here’s another Find a Grave apologist. Like clockwork. As predictable as NRA people showing up on gun control…
As always, some refuse to accept that Find A Grave is MORE than a genealogy site.
Judy, seriously? It is disrespectful to label those that disagree with your point of view / position. But, then you have to stoop to politics as well.
Politics is not a dirty word: “the activities associated with the governance of a country or other area, especially the debate or conflict among individuals or parties”.
Judy, you say politics is not a “dirty word,” yet every genealogy page – specifically the Ancestry secret group and the Genealogy Squad – administrator get wrapped around the axel if a member, specifically a conservative, doesn’t hold the same political views. So political discussions are taboo and it most certainly is a “dirty word.” And, debate and conflict among individuals of the “conservative” ilk (being in disagreement with the point of view of the administrator(s) specifically is frowned upon.
This isn’t Find a Grave. This isn’t a group or page on Facebook. This is The Legal Genealogist. I own it. I pay the bills. And my annual statement says, in plain terms, that I can talk about political issues if I choose to. Because I own it and I pay the bills.
Well I have a couple of questions about this. You said it was shared on twitter but there is no link to it? Was it shared on there by a family member? I think the contents of that twitter post would be helpful before we make up our minds on if it is disrespectful or not. Also who made this memorial was it a family member or not? How did you find out there were 19 made for the victims?
I’m not against it completely but I think there needs to be more information shared before I would be upset over it.
Welcome, welcome, to the Find a Grave apologists! They turn out every time this comes up. Every. Single. Time.
Judy its a shame you don’t respond with a open mind instead of the same post
“Find a Grave apologist”. It is not really a fitting statement. We dont always agree with you and when we don’t this is the best response we can expect sadly. Its important to see both sides and not be so one sided .
Signed the Find a Grave apologist / Genealogist with a open mind, its not all set in stone here.
I won’t lump anyone into the apologist category who comes in and says: “I will continue to post memorials even if I have to wait 30 days to do so.” I will simply roll my eyes at those who say “they won’t post if they have to wait” — because that’s not what they mean.
You didnt even post a link to this twitter page instead you label people who disagree with you. We don’t see eye to eye but lets be adults about it. It would of been nice to have a dialog. I had legit questions that went ignored what a shame. We are researchers we should question everything not just take what people say at face/blog value that would be like blindly copying a tree.
The identity of the Twitter poster is in the footer.
Judy I stand by my statements. You roll your eyes at those who disagree with you .
Find A Grave has guidelines that I have found they do enforce. If you are a closer relationship to the person the memorial is made for then they must transfer it. Every time I requested transfers it had been done. The one person who refused, Find a Grave stepped in and transferred it.
I doubt that many of these parents are even thinking of checking on memorials right now. Have you considered that they might see it differently? That maybe they see it and think how kind someone was to make a memorial for my child, to think about my child. Just another spin on this.
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It should not be used for your disagreement with Ancestry and Find A Grave. If you want them to change their rules and wait a month , keep working towards that but using this to push that through is no different then those you accuse of jumping the gun making memorials. Its like your saying its not ok to make memorials for these children but its ok to use this to get Ancestry to change their guidelines.
If you seriously do not see why this might be wrong, and cannot come up with a single valid reason why a brief delay would be acceptable, then “disrespect” doesn’t begin to describe my reaction.
Deb, your comments are well said and appreciated.
Judy, I have to say I’m disappointed in how you label and respond to anyone who disagrees with your point of view / stance.
And, Deb’s question is a legitimate one. I do not believe for one minute that any of the parents or other family members are concerned right now about whether a memorial was created in memory and honor of their loved one. And, I seriously doubt that the majority of them even know that there is a website that honors and documents a loved one’s final disposition. Additionally, as you well know, because it was one of the first things I learned from you 20 years ago, that FACTS – name, birthdate, place of birth, death date, etc. – are PUBLIC information. So, I do not see how putting this information on a site that honors and documents the deceased is in any way offensive.
And, I don’t give a rip about how many memorials one has/hasn’t. Or, whether they do it for the numbers or not. They are documenting and honoring the deceased. And, that is a good thing.
Find-a-Grave, contrary to what you’d like people to believe is not, nor was it ever, a genealogy centric website. It was not created for that purpose. That genealogists USE it to jumpstart their research is documented, but that doesn’t give a portion of the genealogy community the right to swoop in and demand that the creators now change their website to suit them.
I do however, agree with you that Ancestry should have never purchased it. I remember the days where there was a hue and cry and legal action taken to limit and destroy companies if they held, or were perceived to hold, a monopoly – Ma Bell (AT&T) anyone. And, yet here we are with Ancestry now holding a monopoly in the Genealogy business.
You can be as disappointed in me as you’d like. (Considering I’m giving you all free reign here on a website that I pay the bills for to disagree with me.) But two facts remain incontrovertible: (a) real live people have stated over and over and over how hurt and angry and upset they were when entries were made by strangers for their loved ones, depriving the families of the opportunity to make their own decisions about how/when/whether to do so; and (b) not one single solitary person — not one — has offered a single reason why it would be a Bad Thing to delay these memorials for a brief period. The best any of you can do is “we do this because we can and you can’t stop us” and “somebody won’t post if they have to wait.”
Judy, there is absolutely no reason to restrict anyone from creating and posting a memorial, a page that does no more than state FACTS that are already public, on Find-a-Grave. Those that choose to be offended, will be.
My, and those here that agree, need no other reason than this for our point of view/position.
We will agree to disagree and I’m fine with that.
As I said: “The best any of you can do is “we do this because we can and you can’t stop us” and “somebody won’t post if they have to wait.””
Judy completely dismisses anyone who says they didn’t mind when their family member was added to Find A Grave before relatives thought about it. You can see it in the comments of her other blog posts on the same subject. The opinions of those families don’t matter because they don’t agree with Judy.
The opinions of those families are perfectly taken care of in my proposal: they (not you, not anyone else) are free to create those memorials. Their interests are fully protected, without damaging anyone else.
Judy, you might want to refresh your memory by re-reading the comments on your previous Find A Grave rants. Some expressed gratitude that a “stranger” had created the memorial in the time frame your propose limiting to family only. That’s not taking care of their opinions. In other words, you dismiss their feelings.
Jane, you have posted nearly 100 comments under two different names and two different email addresses over three years — on this subject and this subject alone. Continue to post if you like, but it’s crystal clear that you are a one-note band … and the note is distinctly off-key.
So, Judy, your only response to Jane’s comment about other’s comments, where family members were in no way offended, and in fact appreciated, that someone; anyone, created a Find-a-Grave memorial in honor of their recently deceased. These folks didn’t mind if it was post one minute, one hour, one day, or one week later. They and their family members were hearted by someone taking the time to remember and honor their loved one. Yet rather than responding to Jane, who pointed out that you and the others that have jumped on your vitriolic band wagon, did not/have not taken THESE family members who’ve stated they take no issue as when, or how soon, after their loved one died a Find-a-Grave memorial is created/posted. Instead you disparage her because she has posted a number of times voicing her opinion, which happens to be in disagreement with yours. I suspect, no know, that you wouldn’t have disparaged her, nor her many posts had she been, were she in agreement with you.
While you may be willing, “though you pay the bills,” to let those who disagree with you. You will only enter into polite discourse with them IF they agree with you. Otherwise you resort to disparaging remarks and labeling. It’s sad really. And, disrespectful.
You’re right that I do not respect those who are not willing to take a very small step, utterly inconsequential to them, to avoid hurting others. Those who want their family members memorialized can do so. Those who don’t, or who want it done their way, can do so. Nobody gets hurt… except those who are trying to rack up their numbers. So, yes, I absolutely do not respect those who don’t care about the hurt their actions cause. And I’m proud of that.
Yet again, Judy, you are wrong. One name, one email address. There are such things as shared computers.
Yes, I only post on this subject. Prior to your first rant on this subject, I was a fan and regular reader but I never felt the need to comment. Your vitriol changed that – not only did I feel the need to comment, I also stopped being a fan or reading your blog. I come over to comment when you rekindle the rant.
So you and Sally share the exact same Gmail address, and there is another Jane Elroy who rants about Find a Grave who uses a different Gmail address but makes exactly the same arguments using almost exactly the same words. And all of these use the same basic IP address. Oooooookay. Sure.
16 of the 19 have memorials. Only the adults had photos on line.
The 14 children had a recently deceased disclaimer and no photos online.
Imra Gracia – Created by David Heath (has photo on mobile)
Alithia Ramirez – Created by David Heath
Ameria Garza – Created by David Heath
Annabell Rodriguez – Created by David Heath
Eva Mireles – Created by Eternal Peace (has photo on mobile)
Eliahana Torres – Created by TCW
Jayce Luevanos – Created by David Heath
Jose Flores – Created by David Heath (has photo on mobile)
Layla Salazr – Created by David Heath
Makenna Elrod – Created by David Heath
Maite Rodriguez – Created by David Heath
Navaeh Bravo (2 memorials) – Created by Aaron95 (has photo on mobile), Created by TCW
Rojelio Torres – Created by David Heath
Tess Mata – Created by David Heath
Uziyah Garcia – Created by garcia.
Xavier Lopez – Created by David Heath
https://twitter.com/davidhth?lang=en
The memorials as they currently stand aren’t that bad. They are newer, created within the last three days.
What I saw angering many were the original memorials. Three different creators. Pictures taken from the news. A couple had more information about the shooter than the individual.
If we are able to step away from this exact situation and look at other aspects of what happened, there were other issues with them.
The original memorials (only one of which appears to remain and is no longer maintained by the original creator) all contained images that the poster would not have had permission to use. Some contained newspaper articles word for word. And the original memorials appeared before 48 hours had passed (the date was May 25 on the originals), which means no one was buried yet.
FindAGrave does have guidelines that should be followed. No copyrighted material. No identifying of living people. There should be a grave.
While I do personally disagree with someone adding all that information less than 24 hours later, the rule follower in me disagrees even more with the liberties taken that were very clearly against the guidelines of the site submitted to. In that aspect, it would be no different than someone visiting their sister in the hospital when her roommate dies and creating the memorial in the parkade copy and pasting off an old LinkedIn bio and their Facebook site and adding it to the local cemetery even though no one has even thought about a burial.
While I admit I would rather not see them up just yet because it makes my heart sad, I appreciate that the available information has been pared down to straight biographical information. Name, date of birth if known, date of death. That’s all I see on the app. And no more reference to the shooter in any of the memorials, or hashtags.
I think that most of the controversy herein expressed arises from the failure to recognize that Find-A-Grave is a social media app which contains some content useful to genealogists and some content of interest to non-genealogists. It’s the same as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Telegram etc etc etc. For example, many thousands of genealogists post to Facebook, but nobody is under the delusion that Facebook is a genealogy site. The fact that Find a Grave is owned by the same corporate entity that owns Ancestry.com clouds the issue, but doesn’t make it any less a social media site. Once corporate America enters the world of the Web, they begin to live by the rules of the Web- it’s all about “eyeballs” for advertising and upping the search engine rankings. And nothing gets you there quicker than a site appealing to divergent interests and controversy only adds to the traffic.
Disclaimer: This is the opinion of an old guy trying to survive the onslaught of modern times in his declining years, so be aware that it’s probably wrong.
You may well be right, but here’s the bottom line: If that’s how Ancestry wants to be run that site, it will have to take the heat for it too.
Ancestry, Please remove the stats. One small deterrent to collecting numbers. Genealogy is not a competition. I noticed a posting placed on the Uvalde graves, blocking the info of the person creating the memorial. This is a start in the right direction. Family needs time to grieve and should be able to control the info given on a public loved one’s memorial.
That block on the Uvalde memorials was done after the fact…
The creator details are still visible in the FindaGrave app. Of the 21 memorials I found for the Uvalde victims, 17 were created by the same ghoul. Although it appears his account may now be defunct.
Defunct would be a good thing…
This is (at least) the second set of memorials created. I saw a Twitter post on May 26 discussing it and had gone to the site to see just how bad it was.
I remember one that was added on May 25 where they had taken a picture off the news and the ‘biography’ of the individual talked more about the shooter and even had hashtags.
There is literally no reference to it on the site. The creator is not referenced at all in any of the current memorials. (It was not David Heath.)
I’m not excited about them already being up, but these current memorials at least aren’t filled with gory details copied and pasted from the newspaper. None that I just looked at contain hashtags or reference cause of death at this time.
I think I just fell in love with you a little bit, Judy! Thank you for so effectively putting into words what my flabbergasted brain could not. The numbers game is an ugly bastardization of such a good and useful genealogical tool. Thank you for adding in the contact information. I’ve already sent one message to Find a Grave. I’ll be sending some additional messages through these channels!
Judy, I don’t believe for one minute that these families 1) know about the website Find-a-Grave 2) rushed to see if someone dared to create / post a memorial about their loved ones. They have far more to worry about and to deal with than whether a memorial was created/posted to honor and document their loved one.
This for me is what I focus on, someone took the time to “honor, remember and document” someone I love. They took the time to document a life! How did this become offensive.
What I find more offensive is that you are using these families, and encouraging others to do the same, to continue your battle with Find-a-Grave and Ancestry to achieve your desired demands.
What I find offensive is that you refuse to acknowledge that living people are hurt by this rush to post. The comments to this post alone contain proof of that. You cannot offer a single reason to disbelieve that these people are hurt. You cannot offer a single reason not to provide a brief delay except “nobody can stop us.”
Living people are hurt.
That’s the outcome of the midnight death notice trolls, regardless of intent.
Living people are hurt is the relevant reason for Ancestry to reform this website. If the Ancestry corporation is interested in ethically managing Find-A-Grave, it would be easy to require a notification from a potential poster to corporate headquarters stating the poster’s relationship to the deceased for a memorial created within 60 days of the death date. This would force Ancestry to hire staff to review posts made with unseemly haste.
Unseemly haste that harms the living, grieving family members of murder victims, for the purpose of a self-glorification statistic, is an act of unmitigated evil. It is incivility taken to the depths of hell.
To the people who photograph and post information from historical cemeteries, thank you. That is a valuable public service for family history researchers.
Tracy, you keep repeating the same pointless excuses for defending this deplorable practice, particularly in the instance of the Uvalde tragedy and similar cases. Your go-to, boilerplate response is that the parents likely don’t know about it and have more to worry about. That’s disgusting. As a Find a Grave contributor myself, I would never say such morally reprehensible drivel.
In other words, you’re saying that they’re too busy grieving to notice that a disturbed individual took it upon themselves to create a whole slew of Tragedy Porn profiles, complete with hashtags and more information about the shooter who took the life of their loved one than the person supposedly being memorialized. That’s pretty revealing about your motives and your intention to fight for that ability to be first to post about a death.
If you, or any of the rest of the Find-a-Death-So-I-Can-Be-The-First-To-Post-It defenders on this thread, actually cared about creating actual memorials, like those of us who are contributors rather than Obituary Papparazzi, then you’d have NO ISSUE with a moratorium on new memorials for a set period of time.
I don’t think that many will disagree that finding a burial site for someone who has been dead long enough for the grass to grow over their gravesite is useful; however, you continually use the guise of gratitude to excuse this macabre and perverted practice of rushing to score the goal of being first to post a death.
To your upthread comments: I don’t care how it came to be, but Find-a-Grave is now considered a genealogy website which falls under the umbrella of Ancestry.com. It’s clear that bothers you since you’re not a researcher and take issue repeatedly with genealogists in this thread alone.
To another of your upthread comments: Even as a contributor and a volunteer to the site myself, I’m fine with your snarky and revealing post about the entire site being removed—let’s yank it and redo it with the information we have and let it have a proper format, I’m all for it and I’ll sit in amusement as the ghouls deflate when their numbers and attributions disappear. I’m all for it—let’s treat it like indexing records. It doesn’t give me or anyone else credit for the tens of thousands of records I’ve indexed, and I’m 100% fine with that. You think that your “low hanging fruit” (your words to describe YOUR work), will be missed by those of us that are professionals and know how to research? Clearly you are a death collector rather than a researcher if you think serious genealogists jumpstart their research from your (or anyone’s) contributions to Find-a-Grave. In fact, I’m watching with glee as your repeating of this singular example of this grateful person you keep referencing is so stuck in your stubborn mind while there have been multiple real world examples of people being upset at the ghoulish and perverse practice of racing to post a memorial of their loved ones on this comment thread alone. Again, I say this as a contributor and a volunteer myself. If you, Jane Elroy, and any of the others who can’t seem to comprehend the difference between appreciation at a stranger posting a memorial a few months after death, and an obituary scourer on death watch who rushes to be the first to post, then no amount of explaining it in easy to read words is going to help you or the condition from which you suffer.
Judy pays the bills here. It’s her site. If you don’t like it, then start your own site and stay there. You are coming on to her site and being disrespectful and purposely disregarding the many stories on this thread alone of people who are bothered by your practices—but you just want to do what you want to do. It’s not about “helping” anyone but yourself. You’ve demonstrated that repeatedly.
Thank you, Judy. Most of us get it. There is a difference between volunteers that are doing work that contributes to people that can’t see a gravesite on their own and those that are defending a ghoulish hobby of being in first place to record tragedy.
It sure would be nice if this was what it says it is: a place to find a GRAVE, not find a quick post for stats.
Bravo LintRollerCoaster for putting into words my exact thoughts on these posts refuting something Judy has written on her own site!
I am a living person who was deeply hurt when a total stranger posted a memorial for my recently-deceased mother, buried in a national cemetery. I was able to gain control of the memorial and make corrections, but there is no excuse for the actions of these total strangers.
Ancestry must put a stop to this!
This article needs to go viral. Maybe then Ancestry.com will do something about this if it does.
This shooting is absolutely gut-wrenching, between the law enforcement officers taking their time, the stories of how many babies might have been able to have been saved – if the officers had moved their backsides, and now this. These families have been through too much already. FIX IT ANCESTRY.
They always say, “don’t read the comments” – which I usually avoid. But holy crap – the “apologist” comments are so vile, almost as bad as the original postings of the victims. What I am learning from these comments is that the emotional impact on a grieving family member does not matter to them, at all.
Secondly – and so very important. One of them posted the FG mission “Find a Grave’s mission is to help people from all over the world work together to find, record and present final disposition information as a virtual cemetery experience.”
Did they catch those two important words? “Final disposition.” They blatantly ignore the fact that memorials created prior to any decisions made by the families are FALSE, FICTION, or deceptive information and in violation of the mission (unless provided by family, of course.) As in the case of any memorial made due to a death story on the news, there is ZERO information provided about the final disposition. Therefore, they are making it up – again, defeating the purpose of FG and violating the posted mission.
Lastly, I get it, people think they are doing good in the world by posting the info from an obituary which does include the final plans for the deceased. And in many cases, they are, because the majority of family members do not even think of FG. Obituaries should at least contain correct information. But I’ve always been in favor of choosing kindness instead of intentionally inflicting harm – especially on families who are already grieving. Maybe that doesn’t matter to several commenting here – but for those who think our reaction is too severe, and we are “hand-wringing” over this – all I can say is, God save you from experiencing this scenario. Because it hurts when it happens – it hurts like hell. Congratulations to those who chose to inflict pain on grieving families to increase your number count – plain and simple. And Ancestry continues to CHOOSE to give them this option, instead of closing the gap to allow grieving families a chance to breathe before thinking of this step.
To assist Judy in getting the word out, I’m off to post a thread on Twitter to share my own experience. It is not as severe as most stories, but the emotions are real, and our opinions do matter – despite Ancestry’s constant stance that disregards the impact on family members.
Great post, Judy!
The hurt and pain is real. I just wish these folks would stop and think about that.
“The hurt and pain?” The hurt and pain is grief, and they’d feel that whether it was posted right after the event happened and many feel it even five years after. Many have expressed over the years how it pains them to add a deceased child that a) wasn’t one that they gave birth to and 2) that was miscarried, still born, born and then died 200 years ago. It is indeed a human and real reaction for some.
However, there is 100% nothing disrespectful about someone other than family creating/posting a memorial that has public FACTS – Name, date/place of birth, and date/place of death. Nothing.
Now if they wrote something such as they – the deceased – was the spawn of satan, then you and I would be in agreement.
Again, FACTS being posted harms no one. Honestly, the way you and others that agree with you on this issue come across is that this is more about “I didn’t get there first to do this.” And, while I understand you (global use of the word) were wanting to do this, you and those that agree with you come across as your feeling this is a contest; you didn’t beat others to it, so now you’re (global usage) “offended.”
I’ve followed your plea in this post and reached out to those you’ve name and have encouraged them to take Find-a-Grave down. Lock it up, NO MEMORIALS no matter when they were created, in the past, or more recently, should ever again be viewed. Memorials, as we see more and more from the minority, with vitriolic voices, are offensive. So, PLEASE take the site down NOW! Never to return in any format.
I hope you have a clue — even a small one — how incredibly selfish that comes across. So many people expressing their hurt, and your response essentially is, “I beat you to it, live with it.”
Judy, I’ll tell you what, I’ll agree to your proposal IF, and only IF, Ancestry also prevents anyone from adding a newly deceased person to their Ancestry Family Tree for a period of one year. A distant cousin added my mom to her family tree less than a week after Mom died. That hurt me deeply and I shouldn’t have had to deal with that while I was still dealing with me grief.
Agreed?
While I see a difference between a public site and a subscription site, I have no problem with the rules being the same across the board: it wouldn’t bother me a bit if only relatives could add the recently deceased to a public tree within the same time period.
No Judy, again you seem to not have understood what I was saying. I said, you and the others that agree with you, with seeming to be upset that you/those that agree with you are most upset because you/those that agree with you didn’t get there first; you/those that agree with you seem to be miffed if someone created (“beat you to it”) the memorial and posted it on Find-a-Grave before anyone else could.
It isn’t hat I haven’t had this experience, someone creating/posting a memorial within hours after a loved one died. I have and I didn’t mind it. Nor did other family members – mainly because they had no clue that Find-a-Grave exists. I did, and I was going to create that memorial as soon as I learned of my Uncle’s passing. But, you know what as a family member helping my aunt out with afterlife business, you know contacting the funeral home, dealing with the arrangements, etc. I didn’t get to it. By the time I did someone else had already done so. Was I offended, hurt, miffed? NO, of course not! The creator/contributor simply had created a memorial providing my Uncle’s name, date/place of birth, date/place of death, and posted online flowers. That’s it. What is to be offended/hurt about that? Seriously. I showed my Aunt, and other family members, what this kind and thoughtful person had done and there response was positive. They didn’t know of this site and they were humbled by the fact that a perfect stranger took a few minutes of their time to honor/remember/document someone that they didn’t know. In fact, after the funeral, which was a week later, my Aunt asked if I could help contact this volunteer on Find-a-Grave so and send her an email through the site thanking her for her thoughtfulness.
And, to what Jane said. I see that she feels differently about finding it more hurtful for someone – even a family member – noting the death of a recently deceased shared relative on their tree. I have to say again, I take no offense or issue with that. And, my recent experience with this is very fresh. My mother recently died, again, I was going to update her profile on Ancestry, on my tree. But, I didn’t get to it until the next day and before traveling to Florida to take care of her funeral arrangements, etc. When I logged onto Ancestry, I saw that another family member had updated my mother’s information on their tree showing her as deceased. Did it hurt? Nope. Did it offend me? Nope. Again, why would it. My mother is deceased. Nothing that was posted was incorrect or that wasn’t factual. And, for Pete’s sake it was simply the date of death.
This isn’t about you. Or your personal reaction. Or your feelings. Seriously.
I never said it was about me. However, I did provide anecdotal comments showing a different response/reaction to what you feel, and others, feel is offensive and hurtful. My experience, my reaction, and my family’s reaction differ, and I think our experiences, thoughts and feelings should be considered as well.
Or, are we; am I to take you response to mean that only those experiences and responses that you deem important to consider and that match yours are the only ones that are valid?
Above you said something along the lines of wanting those who “have been hurt” by these Find-a-Grave (number grabbers as you call them) creating and posting a memorial on Find-a-Grave before they have had a chance to be heard and considered. So apparently they are the only important voices. You clearly from your comment “. . . It isn’t about you . . .” don’t feel that all voices, all perspectives, all feelings should be heard and considered. Nope, you only want what you want. And only want to hear from those that agree with you. Yeah, yeah, I know you are grudgingly allowing those who disagree to post their comments, even though “you are paying the bill,” blah, blah, blah.
And, you say “this isn’t about you and your personal reactions.”
What? Yet, this complaint and petition within this blog post and others reference this issue is ALL ABOUT others’ personal reactions! So, you are only concerned with, and care about, a minority population. Not how others feel and how their reactions differ. Interesting.
Have a good weekend.
Other than by seeing the number of different people commenting on either side of this issue, there is, of course, no way to be certain which is the “minority” population. However, here, on Facebook, on Twitter and elsewhere, those to whom the option to choose for their own family has been taken by a stranger have overwhelmingly stated that they disapprove. Those who have not had it happen personally but have watched it happen to their friends have overwhelmingly stated that they disapprove. In response, we have… you. So yes, I will disregard the desires of the few in favor of the concerns of the many.
No, Judy, you didn’t read what I said “I’ll agree to your proposal IF, and only IF, Ancestry also prevents anyone from adding a newly deceased person to their Ancestry Family Tree for a period of one year.”
Anyone.
Not even relatives.
Ahahahaha! You’re so funny. Keep it up — you’re sure showing your real colors. I love it!
Judy, WELL SAID!
I hope Ancestry does not cow down to this. There is no reasonable way for them to enforce a wait period.
Did these families ask you to represent them in having memorials removed ? Or its just fitting your personal battle against Ancestry and you get to decide that these families are hurt by this. It would be different if the families contacted you themselves and said I don’t want these memorials put up, but you haven’t said that they requested it. In the news I see photos of parents holding up signs that say REMEMBER THEIR NAMES, that tells me they might not be as hurt or offended as you claim they are. The memorial you shared reads as if they spoke to the family.
Good Day…..
Still waiting for somebody to tell me how you will be hurt by this… except in your stats.
Exactly, Judy. Tracy has projected her own motivations repeatedly. Her stats. And she’s used her own example of not caring to say that others shouldn’t. I didn’t create the memorial for either of my parents and don’t even manage them—a stranger does. I’m not bothered by this but I can see the other side and how people would be bothered by it. Tracy can’t see anything but her own motivations.
She revealed her pettiness of yanking the site, but I’m going to agree with her but for better reasons than her own. Ancestry should backup the site and remove all the stats and attributions to individual contributors. It should then be reuploaded as a site where there is no attribution for memorials in much the way that there is no attribution for the indexing of records on Ancestry or FamilySearch. It’s just information that was compiled. That’ll stop the ghouls. Bring it on, Tracy! I hope it works, but for very different reasons than you seem to have to protect your stats. I have 75. It’s no skin off my nose. Ancestry bought the site so they aren’t just going to close it without a backup plan, so I say we let Tracy take the lead and convince them to back it up and yank it and re upload it. Fingers crossed!
Deb, you’ve missed the point. Did you see the memorials with the hashtags that mentioned more about the shooter than the person being memorialized? That would not come from the family. Wow.
Great post Judy!
I posted some photos back in 2012 on find a grave an I was told I have copyright to my photos. Now is ancestry saying if a family member who I am not sure of wants control of the photos I have to give them control or they will.?
I own my photos not Ancestry.
Posted
The photos are still attributed to you and you have copyright. If you don’t want a family member to use them after being given control of the memorial, you can remove them.
Last night, after watching the heartbreaking press conference about the 5 family members from Houston, Texas, who were apparently killed at their ranch (4 of them children), on June 2, by an escaped convict, I decided to check Find a Grave. Sure enough, memorials were already posted for all five, with the same photos (accessible through the app) that were posted with news stories. During the press conference, those who spoke for the family asked that their privacy be respected.
Yeah. that’s really honoring their privacy… sigh… Ghouls.
And there is also a memorial on Find a Grave for the convict. Good grief!
curious, why fault Ancestry for this? Find a grave is a stand alone site that maintains its own data. Ancestry only links to the find a grave site when a match-hint is found
Ancestry bought Find a Grave in 2013. Its operators are Ancestry employees.
if and when restrictions are put into place by find a grave – what restrictions will be in place for other similar websites – example canadian headstones and many others. note that Ancestry has only a link to find a grave.
Ancestry isn’t responsible for what any other site does. Only for the site it owns. You’ll have to address those questions to the other sites and their ownsers.
I did not know that, thanks for the update. Surprised that find a grave is still a free site if ancestry owns it.
It’s supported by advertising.
Thank you, Judy. I have felt this way for years. I have contacted FAG and Ancestry numerous times expressing my views. Nothing happened. It’s nice to know there are so many others who feel the same way!
As an individual who tried to reasonably resolve a false and slanderous “life story” posted on a ‘Find A Grave’ memorial (about my deceased relative) by a distant family member who was bent on getting back at her family of origin, I have come to a conclusion: Nothing short of a Class Action lawsuit against ‘Find A Grave’, a product of Ancestry.com will resolve these mounting and ignored customer complaints! We need to find an attorney who is interested in tackling this behemoth. One other conclusion I came to as a paralegal in my multiple attempts (1 year now) to contact an upper management ‘actor ‘ at Find a Grave or Ancestry to deal with my legal complaint is the fact that they have human and IT firewalls around Ancestry and they hide behind “customer support” folks that know nothing, live abroad, will not give out any contact information for mailing legal documents, place you on hold incessantly as a way to tire you out, and then quietly hang up the phone on you when you ask for basic legal contact information after enduring their gauntlet of: “Hold please, so I can look into….” This is the real concern. It is obfuscation at its finest. As a family historian and genealogist, Ancestry’s behavior around bona fide customer complaints regarding these memorials is legally negligent, allows slander to occur, and other bad behaviors by people who own memorials and who are not mentally stable or operating in good faith. Deceased people are legally defenseless, they know this. We, the living, must continue to pursue justice for them!
The shock of finding my Mom’s obituary along with incorrect data on her parents and siblings posted online before her full obituary was in the paper infuriated me. Credited was some unknown person, xxxxx xxxxx, for findagrave. A visit to the funeral home revealed 3 locals who haunt the halls there and other funeral homes hoping to be the first to ‘land’ area deaths and get them posted to findagrave ahead of anyone else under the gross misconception the action is either helpful or wanted. Worse, the assumption any family wants strangers of any mindset intrusively pasting family information online or elsewhere. ITS NOT THEIR PLACE!! The fact the funeral homes allow access to their business and clients is doubly intrusive and violates any premise of kindness, privacy, grief, or respect for the deceased & family who are paying for confidentiality and professionalism as an industry standard and instead being relegated as merely the people who foot the bill. Outrageous and unacceptable. Letters of apology from staffers and mortuary employees/owners were simply too little too late.
Other families contacted us about like situations and outcomes lacking change by the homes. Ancestry and its many branches under many names has set out to know more about you than Google. Who knows maybe they are both LDS. I know they have received notarized documents forbidding them in any way to publish a word re: my immediate family by individual documents legal only in my state I’m told under law. This personal intrusiveness by a church or anyone or any group or corporation should be outlawed and all documents destroyed of families wishing to remain private and not Google a deceased member of family and finding 20 sites plastering loved ones in public with information they have no legal rights to.
As a genealogist l found Ancestry published any data sent them by anyone regardless of verification of accuracy. Worthless.
Most ‘Find a Grave’ members are nothing more than pond scum and a quick look at the number of memorials they create is all the evidence you’ll ever need. These are people with not much of a life to begin with. The only difference between those users and heroin addicts is the price. As for ancestry, it’s a corporation of the worst kind worth billions but look closer how they made those billions. You guessed it! The members silly enough to think their upload had some kind of privacy attached. Think about this. A member uploads a tree for free but if a family member wants to see that tree they pay for the privilege. Personally I have always thought that no memorial should be online without the say so of the family members. Good luck with that though.