Citation Help: FindAGrave Now Provides Citation Suggestion

Question

This isn't a post about the usefulness, correctness or validity of FindAGrave, so please don't go there, thanks!

This is only informational to help folks to source FAG.

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I was looking for a grave yesterday and noticed that FindAGrave has made some improvements to their (new site) memorials that I think will really make a large number of folks here on WikiTree very happy! :)

The memorial ID is now at the top of the of the page in the main section above the tabs.

And, here is where you guys are gonna get excited, they are now providing a citation There is a "View Source" link next to the memorial ID. So if you've struggled with how to cite sources, this is going to be fantastic for you, and therefore, for WikiTree (helping get sources properly cited).

So, here is the citation that FAG is now providing:

Find A Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 02 March 2018), memorial page for Claudia J. Esselstyn (Dec 1861–20 Sep 1862), Find A Grave Memorial no. 7407189, citing Aztalan Cemetery, Milford, Jefferson County, Wisconsin, USA ; Maintained by Ted Beckman (contributor 47723172) .

Let's compare that to one example EE suggested for this FAG citation (https://www.evidenceexplained.com/content/find-grave):

Find A Grave, database and images (http://findagrave.com : accessed 14 March 2011), memorial page for Claudia J. Esselstyn (1861–1862), Find A Grave Memorial no.7,487,109, citing Aztalan Cemetery, Milford, Jefferson County, Wisconsin; the accompanying photographs by Mike [--?--] and Kari Waterbury are materially informative, but do not provide a legible image of the inscribed data.

So, based on all the examples in the book that EE recommends in the thread mentioned above and the example provided, it appears that FAG is providing an EE style citation, a boon for everyone!

If you want to add the external link template, as approved (https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/560263/template-findagrave-changes), then your final, inline ref tagged (name field optional) citation would look something like this:

<ref name="findAGrave">''Find A Grave,'' database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 02 March 2018), memorial page for Claudia J. Esselstyn (Dec 1861–20 Sep 1862), Find A Grave Memorial No. {{FindAGrave|7407189}}, citing Aztalan Cemetery, Milford, Jefferson County, Wisconsin, USA ; Maintained by Ted Beckman (contributor 47723172); the accompanying photographs by Mike [--?--] and Kari Waterbury are materially informative, but do not provide a legible image of the inscribed data..</ref>

Of course, citations can vary a bit, and you could use a combination of the two, especially if you want to credit the contributor.

The last part of the EE citation example is very useful, I change it up based on the memorial. Some photos are amazing, and I can quote the tombstone. Here is an example of that I've done recently: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Wantland-34

EDIT: Removed "formatted" from the text, that doesn't work, but it seems to display okay, as "normal." I had tried added a table around the citations to limit their size, but now I can't edit it or remove it. So hopefully everyone finds this readable.

Comments

Suggestion: abbreviate Find a Grave to FG, without the A.

Answer 1

Thank you Allison.  It also serves as a good example on how to format citations.

Answer 2

I've finally took the time to sit down and write a bookmarklet to automatically improve the citation for the Find A Grave memorial you have open in your browser by {{FindAGrave}} as suggested by Allison.

Just copy the code from https://github.com/FlominatorTM/WikiTree/blob/master/Bookmarklets/FindAGrave.js into a new bookmark in your browser, click on it, when you view a memorial at Find A Grave and copy the code from the text box that pops up (currently tested only in Firefox, but should work in others as well)

Answer 3

What about the Find A Grave template? Do we still use it?

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/560263/template-findagrave-changes

Comments

I stopped using the template when FindAGrave modified the citation to include a link to the memorial instead of the home page.

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I still use it.

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I still use the template, but within the full citation. If you use the WikiTree BEE and have the full FindAGrave citation on the profile (copied just as it is from the page there), the WikiTree BEE app will convert it to include the FindAGrave template. I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to have an app which will automatically do that so that I don't have to convert it manually anymore.

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Thanks, that does the same thing as my bookmarklet but seems to do a lot more. Curious finding out what more it does ...