UpFront with NGS: Find-A-Grave

Showing posts with label Find-A-Grave. Show all posts

10 July 2017

Find A Grave – the same and yet different!

Find A Grave – the same and yet different!

Are you an avid fan of Find A Grave? Do you regularly add memorials to it?

If yes, check out the Beta revision of the website now available for you to review and also use.

The easiest way to get to the new site is to go to the old one and then click where it says “Changes are coming to Find A Grave. See a preview now.” Or, you can click here. When you get to the new page, a window will pop up telling you a bit about why the website is changing.

The search feature is quite different looking though seems to provide the same options. I often search on a surname within a particular county and in a way, it’s even easier as when I clicked on Cemetery Location and started typing in Wake, it then brought up Wake County, North Carolina, United States of America and I didn’t have to work my way down the old drop down menu.

As expected the look and feel of each memorial page has changed and the same information is still there, just organized and presented a bit differently.

Please do provide your feedback on the Beta version. In the bottom right-hand corner of each page is a mustard colored bubble which you can click on and provide feedback.

Do know that both the original and the Beta version are fully workable. You can use either platform to make changes to existing memorials or add new memorials.

You can easily go between the two versions of the website by using the toggles on the main page of each directing you to the other version.

What do you think? What is your favorite “new” aspect? Are there any older elements that you think don’t work quite as well in the Beta?

REMEMBER – your feedback on the Beta site is both encouraged and welcome!

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NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.

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Suggestions for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please send any suggested topics to UpfrontNGS@mosaicrpm.com

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Unless indicated otherwise or clearly an NGS Public Relations piece, Upfront with NGS posts are written by Diane L Richard, editor, Upfront with NGS.

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23 January 2015

The Seeming Indication of Their Death is Premature -- Tombstones may not just list the deceased!

Source for blank image: http://aremid.deviantart.com/art/The-Blank-Tombstone-119712435

Edited by DLR

I am happy to report that my father and his wife are alive!

You may wonder why I feel the need to do this. Well – they are both listed in Find-a-Grave!

Find-a-Grave, BillionGraves, CemeteryCensus, Interment.net are wonderful resources for our research. We can learn a lot about the burial, death and maybe family members of the deceased.

Now, sometimes – a person is listed in Find-a-Grave for a particular cemetery and yet they are actually not buried there. A surviving spouse may have remarried and is now buried with the first spouse (or vice versa). A person may have died elsewhere and is now buried with other family members in a completely different location. Maybe the person died and is buried in the cemetery and no-one ever updated the tombstone.

There are also other reasons why we have to be careful in how we interpret the information we found on these websites – information based on a death certificate or an obituary (which might be in error on where the burial took place), people get reburied elsewhere, graves get moved, etc. All of these factors can impact the accuracy of the information provided.

In the case of my father and his wife, it just so happens that in preparing for what is eventual for all of us, they went ahead and purchased a cemetery plot, had a tombstone engraved with their names and birth dates and have arrangements in place for when they die for the stone to be updated.

Their current listing has their death date as “unknown.” This is true. It’s just not unknown in the sense that we don’t know when they died, it’s unknown in the sense that they are not yet deceased!

Just a reminder to always keep looking for records and information even when we think we might have an answer – we might not have the full story.

Did I also mention that the cemetery is not in the community where they have lived for over 20 years? It’s located where they met and grew up ... and, that’s a story for another day.

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NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.

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Think your friends, colleagues, or fellow genealogy researchers would find this blog post interesting? If so, please let them know that anyone can read past UpFront with NGS posts or subscribe!

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Suggestions for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please send any suggested topics to UpfrontNGS@mosaicrpm.com

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Unless indicated otherwise or clearly an NGS Public Relations piece, Upfront with NGS posts are written by Diane L Richard, editor, Upfront with NGS.

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22 December 2014

150,000 Gravestones Photographed in One Day

MyHeritage recently reported

I wanted to let you know about a project we undertook this week as part of our global initiative to preserve and digitize cemeteries worldwide, with the help of some friends.

We embarked on a very ambitious goal to digitize Israel's largest cemetery, Holon, collaborating with genealogy companies, genealogy organizations, societies and other volunteers who love genealogy. It was our biggest challenge yet, and one of the largest events of its kind ever organized - in the world!

The day was a huge success! Over 150,000 gravestones were photographed. It is a great model for how similar activities can be organized around the world.

Please read more about the event in our blog post: http://blog.myheritage.com/2014/12/digitizing-cemeteries-myheritage-is-at-it-again-with-friends

This event was part of the global initiative that MyHeritage and BillionGraves launched earlier this year. Read more here.

Earlier this year, BillionGraves and The Federation of Genealogical Societies partner to image ALL cemetery markers for WAR OF 1812 Participants.

Collaborations between entities with reach into the individuals who make up our genealogical community and a crowdsourcing-based software such as BillionGraves or a web platform such as Find-a-grave or other up and coming projects, like Cemetery Census, are dramatically increasing the amount of cemetery information available to us.

There is something so very basic and human about wanting to know where our ancestors are buried and ensuring that they “will not be forgotten.”

All of these projects welcome volunteers.

Are you helping or have you helped to digitize the residents of a local cemetery? Would you like to give a shout-out to local efforts to digitize a cemetery?

Editor’s Note: Recent cemetery posts on Upfront with NGS

+ You Can Help! Institutional Cemeteries Website Seeking Assistance -- Let's Do What We Can to Remember These Often Forgotten Individuals

+ Using Radar To Do Cemetery Mapping and Find Unmarked Graves -- Fascinating!

+ Coffee cafes in cemeteries -- popular in Europe! Might we see the same in the US?

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NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Think your friends, colleagues, or fellow genealogy researchers would find this blog post interesting? If so, please let them know that anyone can read past UpFront with NGS posts or subscribe!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Suggestions for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please send any suggested topics to UpfrontNGS@mosaicrpm.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Unless indicated otherwise or clearly an NGS Public Relations piece, Upfront with NGS posts are written by Diane L Richard, editor, Upfront with NGS.

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Want to learn more about interacting with the blog, please read Hyperlinks, Subscribing and Comments -- How to Interact with Upfront with NGS Blog posts!

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25 September 2014

Find A Grave’s Community Day on October 18th

Keeping with yesterday’s theme about cemeteries, Find A Grave is having a community day on the 18^th of October.

Cemeteries are an important part of our family history. Your work to fulfill outstanding photo requests and building memorials helps people around the world who cannot visit these cemeteries in person. We know a lot of this is done on an individual basis and we thought it would be great to try and get you together as a group in your local community to meet one another while you do what you love to do.

While we started with a few locations in the USA, we hope to inspire meetups all around the world and expect this list to grow quite large over the coming weeks. These events are all volunteer run and are easy to set up. We hope you will be inspired to host an event in your local town and add it to the list below.

All the instructions on how to create a meetup event or participate in one are provided here.

The website page dedicate to this effort is here.

Might you or a local society host an event where you live?

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NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Think your friends, colleagues, or fellow genealogy researchers would find this blog post interesting? If so, please let them know that anyone can read past UpFront with NGS posts or subscribe!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Suggestions for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please send any suggested topics to UpfrontNGS@mosaicrpm.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Unless indicated otherwise or clearly an NGS Public Relations piece, Upfront with NGS posts are written by Diane L Richard, editor, Upfront with NGS.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Want to learn more about interacting with the blog, please read Hyperlinks, Subscribing and Comments -- How to Interact with Upfront with NGS Blog posts!

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Follow NGS via Facebook, YouTube, Google+, Twitter