Thursday, October 27, 2011

Bogus Grave Memorials on Find A Grave

No tombstones today - I thought instead I would get on my soapbox in regard to the current abundance of bogus grave memorials on Find A Grave. I have always felt that Find A Grave was a wonderful resource and have submitted all of the cemetery photos I take to that site. I also search Find A Grave in the course of researching various individuals. It’s a great source of birth and death dates for those who lived long before birth and death certificates existed.

However lately I see more and more bogus grave memorials entered there. Yesterday I discovered a fictitious grave memorial for a great great uncle. One of his descendants had previously submitted a photo of his gravestone and entered a memorial for the cemetery where he is actually buried which is in the same county. There was another bogus memorial in the same Kentucky cemetery by the same person (not a descendant) for another great great uncle from the same family who had actually died in another state.

Am I the only one who is concerned about this practice and how rampant it is becoming on Find A Grave? Find A Grave doesn’t seem to care and apparently has no restrictions as to whether entering a memorial should require the presence of a legitimate grave in the cemetery. They also don’t make it very easy to contact them to complain – hence my post here.

It concerns me that these practices will eventually ruin the site as a tool for researchers if they haven’t already. I’m not sure whether I will stop submitting my photos there but I may investigate the new Cemetery Transcription Project of the US GenWeb Archives as an alternative to Find A Grave.

Anyone else have an opinion?

January 2014 - Update
This week I've encountered another incident concerning a bogus Find A Grave memorial. I received a message through Find A Grave requesting that I add a relationship link to the memorial I had placed several years ago for Thomas Slayden at Maplewood Cemetery in Mayfield, Kentucky. The link was supposedly to his father Stokley Slayden, memorial number 123010442, at a cemetery in Weakley County, Tennessee. Several years ago a memorial (84242079) had been entered for Stokley Slayden at the Baltimore Cemetery in Graves County, Kentucky where both he and his wife Nancy are buried. The person who made the duplicate memorial in Weakley County had copied the photo from the legitimate first memorial and used it for the bogus one. I wrote the person and nicely told them that I had linked the grave of Thomas Slayden to his father's actual grave in the Baltimore Cemetery and that they should delete their duplicate. Today I see that they have now added their duplicate memorial along with the purloined photo to the Baltimore Cemetery.

There are genealogists who praise Find A Grave and promote it, but I personally have serious misgivings about the entire site based on the numerous incidences of fraudulent memorials.

I have to wonder how many people have made trips, possibly from some distance, to visit a cemetery where the grave as listed on Find A Grave doesn't exist.

8 comments:

  1. I, too, have noted several bogus memorials. However, I think the abundance of correct material far outweighs those who do not use proper research technique, and therefore, "Aunt Betty said that's where they were buried!" I don't believe it is intentional, but the submitter's actually believe they are doing a service.
    That being said, when just a memorial is listed, without photo proof of the stone, I never utilize it as a source, but will instead try to either prove, or disprove the listing. If I cannot, then I make a note of it for further research.
    I, too, utilize the US GenWeb project.If it corroborates a memorial on FindAGrave, how cool is that!
    I've never had a problem reaching anyone on FindAGrave [knock on wood!], but have read multiple complaints about that. It would be nice to be accessible by their users!
    Plese don't stop submitting your photos! Don't let the few ruin the greater good of the site!
    Many thanks for your blog and all that you do!
    Cyndi Beane Henry

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  2. I've also noticed memorials for people whom I know are still very much alive. Most of these do have headstones already, which list a date of birth, but not date of death. Usually their spouse is buried there, but in one case my distant cousin and her husband are just well-prepared. They're in their eighties, so they know it's coming, but they're "not dead yet."

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  3. It seems to me that there are a lot more people doing genealogy in the last few years and have found Find a Grave to be a site to build their own tree, regardless of whether it is accurate, or even if the information is already on there. Bogus memorials, burial unknowns, and duplicates are all enough to make me take a break from the website. I also thought of the Tombstone Project at genweb, but I found a whole bogus cemetery there, so I don't know that it's too much better.

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    Replies
    1. Marti,

      Thanks for your comments. Like you, I have taken a break from Find a Grave. I liked it much better when you actually had to "find a grave" to enter the memorial.

      Bev

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  4. Awesome post! I've had ongoing problems with FindaGrave which I've detailed on my blog. You can also find a lot of disgruntled users in a couple of Facebook groups.

    I had one lady write me last week to say she had only been on the site for a couple of weeks with about 40 memorials. An admin got mad at her, deleted her memorials and blocked her account. This user's brother then decided to add a few of their family members back in to his account (he lives in a completely different state). The next day he found that his account had also been deleted.

    http://ericsfamilytree.wordpress.com/2010/12/23/beware-of-findagrave-com/

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  5. Billion graves is great!!!http://billiongraves.com/pages/dashboard/dash.php

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    1. Anita,

      After you commented, I went to Billion Graves and looked around. I still haven't warmed to the idea of taking all the photos with my phone but I understand that they want to be able to have the GPS coordinates which is a great help in finding cemeteries. I'm just used to using my camera and I have lots of photos that can't be contributed because they weren't taken with the phone.

      I really like the fact that there is a photo of a gravestone for each memorial. This system would prevent all of the memorials from dubious sources and there would only be a memorial if there actually was a grave. I much prefered Find A Grave when a memorial was created because you actually went to the cemetery and "found a grave" and hopefully took a photo of it.

      Thanks for your comment - I'll probably give Billion graves a try.

      Beverly

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  6. I have been active on the site for many years now and I agree that any bad listings on the site are easily outweighed by the good ones. As far as duplicate memorials goes, there are a few reasons for this. The same cemetery may of gone by more than one name over the years, this happened to mke when I first joined the site. I posted many of the gravestones after doing a search and not finding the cemetery on the site. Later I was informed by another member that many of the graves I had listed had been already listed under the other name the cemetery went by - it happens.
    A more common reason for multiple grave listings is that the information on the first listing is incorrect or not complete. I have had a few times when I contacted the person who put up such a memorial and they refused to make changes or simply ignored my requests. I will usually contact such a member three times, if they still refuse to make corrections, I will than put up a duplicate memorial but with the correct or added information - thankfully this doesn't happen often.
    The third way duplicate memorials get posted is the more disturbing way to me, and its by a handful of members who think just because they visited a cemetery and documented some of the gravestones there, that cemetery is now theirs and theirs alone. When I first joined the site I had a real nut case coming after me, insisting I stop doing memorials for several cemeteries that she claimed belonged to her on the site. I ignored her rude remarks to me, but it only angered her more, and one day I went onto the site and found she had posted dozens of duplicate memorials that I had posted first. she even went as far as to take photos of the same stones I already posted and added them to her duplicate memorials. She than send me a nice message informing me that should I attempt to post any more memorials from those cemeteries she would duplicate those as well. she followed that up by sending me rude messages almost daily and I was at the point of leaving the site when another member who was having the same problems from her told me how to go into my settings and block messages. I have not had a problem from her since.
    This just shows three ways that duplicate memorials get posted, and sometimes it is simply because someone new to the site posts memorials not knowing how to check to see if they are already posted.
    Than there is that group on the site where its a numbers thing. For each memorial you add, your numbers go up, for each photo, your numbers go up, and for some having high numbers is more important than worrying about duplicate listings.

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