How Has Findagrave.com Profoundly Affected Your Genealogy Research?

Findagrave.com

I had an awesome time last Saturday presenting "Digging Up Family Stories on Findagrave.com" to the Chaparral Genealogical Society and Library in Tomball, Texas. 

One of the things we concentrated on was the fact that people from all over the world use it for various reasons and that we have to consider why someone is putting the information on there in the first place. Knowing that helps to understand what we're looking at as family history researchers.

For example, there are some people who only do Findagrave.com photo uploads, some who only post obituaries or transcriptions, and then there are those who are linking memorials to each other because, for them, that is their family tree {of sorts}. And many aren't even doing genealogy and this might be their form of "family history" or they might not be doing family history at all. Maybe they're just "gravers."

Which reminds me of a roommate I had in college who liked to read obituaries in the Sunday newspaper and guess how the person died based on the clues revealed in the obituaries. She said her mom and her used to do it together and so my roommate got me addicted to doing it as well. {Genealogist-in-training and I didn't even realize it.} And I've always liked reading the wedding and engagements announcements and pondering if their lives were as perfect as they seemed in the announcements. {And now I have the skills and resources to follow up on those ponderings, but I digress.}

At Saturday's presentation we also went over carefully analyzing uploaders' profiles to not only understand why they might be uploading and creating memorials but also see if we're related to them based on their statistics and other memorials listed on their profile. And we went over some examples with some live searching since we had WiFi at the meeting. {That was very nice because it can be really boring and tedious presenting a search-based website with screenshots. It's much, much better for the audience to see searching done live.}

I also shared some personal researching and family stories that I have uncovered with the help from generous contributors on Findagrave.com including a sad family story that was uncovered due to me connecting with a 4th cousin via Findagrave.com and using its collaboration features. Who knew adding an image of my grandmother's brother to an existing memorial would lead to connecting with a cousin who had known him before and after the fire that killed my grandmother's brother and his 4 kids? He knew the town rumors and the family secrets surrounding their murders in that small, small town in Johnson County, Illinois. {And it turns out a member in the Chaparral Society has kinfolk from Johnson County, Illinois. So we'll be trading notes later.}

This is why Findagrave.com is such a wonderful collaboration tool. It facilitates contacting a possible relation, and while there are some in the community who don't play well with others, that's true of any community, unfortunately. But in this case the many things a researcher can do and learn on a free resource like Findagrave.com far, far outweighs the bad, in my opinion. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. It takes a village to make a family history. And Findagrave.com is an awesome tool that helps us do just that.

So. For those who have been using Findagrave.com share some of your "finds" in comments below to help encourage people to use this resource to its fullest capacity. What have you found there? Have you connected and collaborated with a distant cousin? Have you broken through a research brick wall? What have you done or found on Findagrave.com that has profoundly affected your research and led to unearthing a family story? Let everyone know in comments below. And if you're not using Findagrave.com, why not?

Happy Researching!
~Caroline

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