Find A Grave

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Findagrave.com


URL	www.findagrave.com
Commercial?	Yes
Type of site	Online database
Registration	Optional
Available language(s)	English
Owner	Jim Tipton
Created by	Jim Tipton
Launched	1995
Current status	Active

Find A Grave is a website allowing its users to access, maintain and expand an online database, currently totaling over 22 million burial records.

1 History
2 Content and features
3 Find A Grave community
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[edit] History

According to the founder, Jim Tipton^[1], the website was developed in 1995 to address the lack of any existing site that catered to Tipton's hobby of visiting the graves of famous people.

Initially the site listed only celebrities, but by 2000 Tipton opened the site to non-famous memorials.

After some time, an online forum was created on the site.^[2]

[edit] Content and features

The site's FAQ states that the site strives for a comprehensive listing of the burial places of everyone in the world. ^[3]

The website 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 dedicated site contributors, field volunteers or family members and friends of the deceased.

Members are allowed to place on-line memorials for relatives and friends. There is no cost for this service and users receive editing privileges over the memorials. Members may also request photos of graves which volunteers are notified by Find A Grave and often can fulfill.

[edit] Find A Grave community

Find A Grave counts an increasing number of members, who over the years of the site's existence have formed a community. The Find A Grave Forums is a message board for contributors to the main website and many persons who are interested in genealogy or cemeteries. Many of the members engage in a hobby that has been referred to by cognoscenti as "Tombstone Tourism"^{[citation needed]} (the practice of visiting cemeteries purely for personal enjoyment) and which the people of the site often refer to as "graving". Sections of the forum cover 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 American Civil War, American 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.