Find A Grave
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| URL | http://www.findagrave.com |
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| Commercial? | Possibly |
| Type of site | Online database |
| Registration | Required only to contribute |
| Owner | Jim Tipton |
| Created by | Jim Tipton |
Find A Grave (or findagrave.com) is an online database of cemeteries and burial records.
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[edit] History
The website was founded in 1995 by Jim Tipton [1]. He could not find an existing site that catered to his hobby of visiting the graves of famous people so he decided to create Find A Grave. Initially the site only listed celebrities, be they famous or infamous (the definition of which site administrators had changed frequently, generally referring to individuals who had received recognition in a broad spectrum, i.e., individuals known to people around the world or famous in activity or field with a global following).
With the turn of the millennium, Tipton opened the site to include non-famous memorials, thus creating a genealogical data base that has helped hundreds of people searching for family records. The site's FAQ states, "We strive for a comprehensive listing of the burial places of everyone in the world...It is of great historical importance to have a record of all those who have been a part of our collective humanity. Burial information is a wonderful resource for people researching their families (genealogists). Most importantly, visiting a gravesite is a way of keeping the memory of someone alive." [2]
In expanding the scope of gravesites covered, the site inculcated a community of individuals who have reached out to one another after the loss of family members and friends. With the growing impact of the site, Tipton opened a created an online forum on the site to encourage communication.
As of December 2006 more than 13 million unique "famous" and "non-famous" grave records have been catalogued by Find A Grave contributors.
[edit] Content and Features
The web site contains listings of cemeteries and graves from all around the world. American cemeteries are organized by state and county; and, many cemetery records contain Google Maps (with GPS coordinates supplied by contributors and the U.S. Geological Survey) and photographs of the cemeteries. Individual grave records contain some or all of the following data fields: Dates and places of birth and death, biographical information, cemetery and plot information, photographs (grave marker, the individual, etc.), and contributor information. The vast majority of records have been contributed by field volunteers.
Visitors have the ability to take a stroll in an online cemetery as well as leave token offerings on memorial pages. These offerings, known as "virtual flowers" are often an image of a flower or other object and visitors can choose to leave a brief note with them. The latest 3 offerings are visible on the main page of the entry. Selecting "Click here to view all notes..." enables a user to view all offerings left. As infamous people - including criminals, dictators, and other generally disliked people are also included on Find A Grave, administrators keep what they consider inappropriate messages from being posted in the virtual flowers section. In cases of extensive abuse, administrators can disable the virtual flowers feature for a person's memorial.
Membership at Find a Grave gives people the opportunity to place on-line memorials for relatives and friends. There is no cost for this service and users receive editing privileges over the memorials and can update as needed as long as the contributor adheres to Find A Grave policies. If the user does not live in the part of the world where a gravestone is located a photo request option is available. Requests are fulfilled by contributors world wide who have volunteered for a particular Zip or Postal Code.
Members can also enter memorials for historical figures and/or famous or semi-famous individuals they have researched, including biographies, photographs, and grave photographs.
While Find A Grave is free, member are offered means of contributing to its operational cost. Tipton created a Find A Grave store that offers Shirts, mugs, bumper stickers and other novelty items. For $5.00 a piece, members can also sponsor nonfamous memorials thus removing ads from the page permanently
[edit] Find A Grave Community
At the heart of Find A Grave is its over 200,000 members. Over the years of the site's existence they have formed a community. The Find A Grave Forums is a message board for contributors to the main Find A Grave website and many persons that are interested in genealogy and/or cemeteries. Many of the members engage in a hobby that has been referred to by the public at large as "Tombstone Tourism" (the practice of visiting cemeteries purely for personal enjoyment) and which the people of the site refer to as "graving".
There are sections for a variety of posts by subject
- Cemeteries and Genealogy - for discussions of cemeteries and burial data.
- Finding Famous Graves - for discussing aspects of visiting and researching the graves of notable people.
- Help With Find A Grave - one of the most useful areas for getting prompt answers to problems with the site and/or to list changes that require a Find A Grave Administrator's action.
- The Civil War - Civil War graves questions and information.
- Cemetery Preservation - discussions of issues and techniques for cemetery preservation.
- Mourning, Grief and Emotional Support - 'support group' to receive and offer support to others over the loss of loved ones.
- The Lounge - social 'anything goes' forum which just about says it all.
- Surnames - for discussion on issues of genealogy related to a specific surname.
- There is a section for each state of the United States for discussions of graves by geographic region.
- Sections for Canada and Europe have been added as well.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Find A Grave Contributor: Jim Tipton. Find A Grave (2007). Retrieved on February 24, 2007.
- ^ Find A Grave FAQ. Find A Grave (2007). Retrieved on February 24, 2007.
