Is Find A Grave really a true source. I have seen this lately from our sorcerers. [closed]

Question

I am putting down 3 or 4 sources for each profile but never FAG.  So many of those are wrong.

Comments

But so many of them are also right as well!!!

I put in the FAG when I do not have access to the Death records (NZ database) which happenes to be down this weekend - always the last weekend of the month (sigh).

When the database becomes available again then I can add in the proper death record - but I will still keep the FAG record as well.

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Robynne, you may find many of the older deaths and wills on FamilySearch when NZBDM is down and/or occasionally death notices and obituaries in Paperspast. I found a obit. record on FS yesterday that showed a married daughter. I still can’t find a birth, but found her marriage and death. I use FAG as a hint and then go to the council cemetery page for verification.

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I like to use FAG as a source which finishes the life of the person being profiled.  It  usually puts a location and time frame for the person that are lacking in many other documentations.  Can it be in error?  Sure.  A thinking researcher should be able to put the error (s) into proper focus.

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I really dislike the idea that they allow people to put up memorials for people from whom there is no grave. Often times the information is just a guess as they do not know when or where the person died. I have seen may erroneous memorials for my own ancestors from who the date of death and place of death are just not know.

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I made a FindAGrave for my mother who was buried at sea with Neptune Society and has no cemetery.  She's a missing link in the family and it helps pull the family together.

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I hate to nitpick, but it says she was cremated and her ashes scattered at sea, which is quite a bit different than a burial at sea. This makes a memorial quite reasonable in that case.

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I don’t believe that. I think you rather enjoy nitpicking

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Hi Cousins,

Just a friendly reminder that the Wikitree Honor Code applies to G2G https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/DWWA

Let's endeavor to communicate nicely

We know misunderstandings are inevitable. We try to minimize them by being courteous to everyone, even those who don't act accordingly.

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However if they are right and they have the grave marker and/or death certificate we should use them. And if we see an error on Find A Grave we should send our suggestion and sources. They want accuracy as much as Wikitree does.

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I think FindaGrave can be a great source if it has a photo of the gravestone, showing name & dates of birth and death.

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Even the information on a gravestone can be incorrect.  (Engraver error.  Submitter error.  Person deliberately lied during life.  Family didn't pay any real attention to dates.)  I have one lady who lived her entire adult life as five years younger than she actually was.  Even her death record has the incorrect age.  (My guess is she didn't wish to be seen as older than her husband.)

Dates of birth on gravestones are dependent on the knowledge of the submitter, and it may not be correct (any more than information on some death records).

Whatever information is on a gravestone needs to be weighed against the documents - just as the accuracy, or otherwise, of the documents needs to be weighed against the rest of the life evidence.   For example -- someone claims on marriage to be a certain age, but birth or baptism dates show otherwise; or someone's death age gives them an estimated year of birth, but that is contradicted by census records showing they were alive before that time.

Answer 1

It's a source, better than 'Great aunt Sally said so,' not as good as a death certificate.  Any source can be wrong.  FaG memorials vary widely in accuracy and info value.  If you don't put it in, chances are someone else will.  For that reason, I usually include it with a comment ('Image of stone only shows years of birth and death,' 'No image included,' 'Includes obituary and image of death certificate,' etc).

Comments

Me, too. I describe the page like you, Herbert.

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Great minds, Pip! 

Thanks for the star, Anne! 

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Herbert, I am all too well aware of the errors that abound in Find a Grave memorial pages, but it is still a decent source for information that is often not available on death records - the cemetery name and location (and sometimes interment date) … and I also realize that may also be in error, but at least that part of the Find a Grave data is almost always correct.

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Thanks Herbert, I am learning a lot from this forum.

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*sniff* Great-aunt Sally never lied to me before.....

Herb's on point on this one. Some Find a Grave profiles tend to be better than others.

Now to take Great-aunt Sally off my Christmas list.*

*=Chris may or may not actually have a great-aunt Sally.

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Yes you did, Chris. We can hear the pain in your quavering voice. 

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LOL. You can check my family tree to know for sure, chief. =) Granted some profiles are private. I have a few living great-aunts.

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Gaile, I think you bring up the main thing people tend to forget about FindaGrave:  it's meant to be a source for burials.  Anything else you find there is either a bonus or a red herring.  Compare to a death certificate, which should be spot on for the date and place of death, but you trust it for parents' names and places at your own risk.  It's also a little like the Census, in that the other people buried together can be a big help connecting the right people to the right family (as Anne said in her answer).

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Indeed!

But to nitpick about it, sometimes it's probably exactly the SAME as "Great aunt Sally said so" and I've seen death certificates that were misleading or just plain wrong about stuff - including what cemetery!

And sometimes - depending on exactly which burial - Great Aunt Sally knows BEST.

F-A-G is basically a Wiki for grave transcriptions, and other cemetery records. Most are done by competent people who are trying to help - and are - but often don't really know the person and misread difficult-to-head headstones, or otherwise get facts mixed up.

It's like anything else. You can happen upon some total screw-up, and decide the whole database is worthless - that "All these people who do this should be fired!" (even though they're volunteers, like us) - or you can offer up your corrections (which are almost always gratefully accepted, in my experience) and generally be helpful and supportive.

Answer 2

As others have mentioned, it's a source of moderate accuracy. It can be useful to find family group members who were buried together, among other things, but it shouldn't be considered the ultimate source. The goal is to build information from multiple sources that agree, when possible.

Answer 3

Find a grave, much like the site you are on, is what you make of it. It's user generated. People make the profiles. The good news is you can edit the profiles or make new ones.

What seals the deal for accuracy sometimes are pics of the gravestones. That helps a lot! Just hope those are accurate.

Answer 4

The primary sourcing value for FAG, and Billion Graves, as well is the sourcing of burial information.  It sometimes does provide death information as well. They're not so well on earlier information unless sourced otherwise

Answer 5

Find A Grave offers burial information, which is augmented at times by date of birth, date of death, full name of person, and relationships to others. The most important information from a Find A Grave profile, whether the other information is accurate or not, is the location of the deceased body. Just knowing the physical location of the body is valuable information for a genealogist. And so, yes, absolutely include Find A Grave profiles in the resources of Wikitree profiles. If there are weaknesses in the profile, such as a missing stone or photograph, or incorrect information on the grave marker, then state it in the biography of the Wikitree profile.

Also, before judging the accuracy of Find A Grave profiles, consider that not all Wikitree profiles are accurate, either.

Comments

Don’t assume the body is in the grave just because there is a name on a headstone. I know of a name on a New Zealand headstone on FAG which give no indication that the body is actually in England. A newspaper obituary clarified that.

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I am aware of a situation in Marion County, Illinois where there are two headstones for the same person, one in each of two different cemeteries. One of the stones does not have a body. That doesn't change the fact that headstones are reliable indicators of where a body is located. There are billions of graves, and it is so close to 100% certainty that each headstone marks the location of the indicated body that we could say for all intents and purposes that the Find A Grave profile which includes a photo of the headstone is a valid reference for a genealogical profile.

Just to ramble some more, I am also aware of a situation in Colorado where a valid headstone existed, and then someone replaced it with a headstone with incorrect vital information. I am also aware of Find A Grave profiles where there are two profiles for the same couple, but one claims they are buried in New York, and the other claims they are buried in Kansas. The Kansas profiles have actual photos of the gravestones. You will have to look at a lot of graves to find these exceptions. However, this will be true for all reference sources, because nothing that is developed through hundreds of years of time, and over the face of the Earth, and by millions of participants, and with a wide variation of circumstances, is ever going to be perfect.  

Answer 6

I find some Find A Graves great and even some times get more tips. Others are just like here on Wikitree and no gravestone or sources. I find myself when I'm sourcing if I've found a Find A Grave and there are others in the family I send Suggestions to Find A Grave. Out of the hundreds that I have sent I've only had a couple rejected. I personally think as we are updating sourcing here on Wikitree if we use Find A Grave and easily see family to take the extra few minutes to make the suggestion to the Find A Grave. In the long run I think it will helps everyone all around. My 2 cents worth...

Answer 7

It is a great secondary source to use to expand on your research.  However, you need to be careful regarding photos of tombstones.  I have come across many "memorials stones" that were added MANY years after the actual death.   Some of these have been DAR memorials.

A couple examples are Abner Pinney (Pinney-349) whose stone was damaged and lost when they built an addition onto the church. I visited the cemetery in 1987 and there was no stone present, but there has since been a memorial stone added (FindAGrave Memorial #102907950)

Also David Sprong (Sprong-86).  The original stone gives the correct information for his birth date. The memorial stone has a wrong year. (Find A Grave Memorial# 43201027)

Tombstones were not inexpensive, so often times there never was a marker. In these cases, it it great if you have the sexton's record instead (most cemeteries have -or had records somewhere) Also, remember than bodies have been removed from one cemetery to be buried in a different one. Usually due to construction like highways. And cemeteries can change names.

Another thing to remember, not all photos of markers are from Find a Grave.  I spent many years taking pictures of my ancestors markers -long before the internet even existed.  It's really interesting to find a photo that I took in 1987 submitted by someone else to Find a Grave.