Find a Grave

Find a Grave
Website type
Online database
Available inEnglish
French
German
Spanish
Italian
Dutch
Portuguese
Swedish
Japanese
Danish
Finnish
Norwegian
Polish
HeadquartersLehi, Utah, U.S.
OwnerAncestry.com (2013–present)
FounderJim Tipton
Websitewww.findagrave.com Edit this at Wikidata
CommercialYes
RegistrationOptional
Launched1998; 28 years ago (1998)
Current statusActive

Find a Grave is a collaborative online database of human and pet cemetery records, owned by Ancestry.com. As of 2026, the site claimed more than 265 million memorials.

History

The logo of Find a Grave used from 2000 to 2018

Find a Grave was created in 1995 by Jim Tipton of Salt Lake City, Utah, to support his hobby of visiting the burial sites of famous celebrities. Tipton described his early childhood as a nerdy kid with a fascination for graves, and an interest in HTML. He later added an online forum. Find a Grave was launched as a commercial entity in 1998, first as a trade name and then incorporated in 2000.

In 2010, Find a Grave was expanded to include graves of non-celebrities in order to allow online visitors to pay respect to their deceased relatives or friends.

In 2013, Tipton sold Find a Grave to Ancestry.com.

Content and features

The website contains listings of cemeteries and graves from around the world. American cemeteries are organized by state and county, and many cemetery records contain Google Maps (with GPS coordinates supplied by contributors) and photographs of the cemeteries and gravesites. Individual grave records may contain dates and places of birth and death, biographical information, cemetery and plot information, photographs (of the grave marker, the individual, etc.), and contributor information.

Interment listings are added by individuals, genealogical societies, cemetery associations, and other institutions such as the International Wargraves Photography Project.

The website is often recommended as a resource for genealogy research.

Find a Grave also maintains lists of memorials of famous persons by their "claim to fame", such as Medal of Honor recipients, religious figures, and educators. Find a Grave exercises editorial control over these listings.

Starting from May 18, 2023, memorials became able to be marked with a "Veteran" tag.

Policies

Website policy is to remove memorials or transfer their management at the request of an immediate family member. In January 2022, following complaints, Find a Grave announced a new policy for memorials of recently deceased persons. Under the new policy, any photos or personal information, including obituaries, are hidden for three months.

See also

References

Citations

  1. ↑ "Find a Grave". Find a Grave. Ancestry.com. Archived from the original on May 11, 2020. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  2. ↑ "Original Find A Grave (1995-2018)". Find a Grave. August 20, 2018. Archived from the original on September 3, 2018. Retrieved September 3, 2018.
  3. ↑ "Member Profile: Jim Tipton". Find a Grave. Ancestry.com. Archived from the original on December 23, 2017. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
  4. ↑ "Episode 13 – Jim Tipton, Founder of Find-A-Grave, On Its Beginnings". Extreme Genes. October 16, 2013. Archived from the original on August 12, 2022. Retrieved October 16, 2013.
  5. ↑ Maynard, Meleah (February 16, 2000). "Grave Matters: Minnesota's dead are only a click away". City Pages. Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota: Star Tribune Media Company LLC. Archived from the original on September 28, 2012. Retrieved September 8, 2012.
  6. ↑ "Entity No. 2442925-0151". Utah Secretary of State. 1998. Archived from the original on January 19, 2012. Retrieved November 11, 2011.
  7. ↑ "Entity No. 4729413-0143". Utah Secretary of State. 2000. Archived from the original on April 6, 2012. Retrieved November 11, 2011.
  8. ↑ "Division of Corporations Entity File No. 3168328". Delaware Department of State. 2000. Archived from the original on July 21, 2011. Retrieved November 11, 2011.
  9. ↑ Silverman, Lauren (March 14, 2010). "Tracking Down Relatives, Visiting Graves Virtually". Washington, D.C.: National Public Radio. Archived from the original on June 28, 2011. Retrieved September 28, 2011. "At some point, I said, 'I am sick of drawing the lines of who is famous and who isn't. I'm just going to accept everyone,' " Tipton says.
  10. ↑ "Find a Grave FAQ: What can I include in a non-famous bio?". Find a Grave. Ancestry.com. Archived from the original on December 23, 2017. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
  11. ↑ "Ancestry.com Acquires Find A Grave". Ancestry.com. Archived from the original on October 7, 2013. Retrieved October 1, 2013.
  12. ↑ "Find A Grave Help". Find A Grave. Ancestry.com. Archived from the original on December 18, 2017. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
  13. ↑ Loudon, Bennett J. (September 2, 2011). "Civil War history carved in stone in Pittsford". Democrat and Chronicle. Gannett Company. Archived from the original on September 18, 2020. Retrieved July 29, 2020.
  14. ↑ Moody, Sharon Tate (January 24, 2010). "Find A Grave can shorten the search". The Tampa Tribune. Tampa Media Group. Archived from the original on January 13, 2012. Retrieved December 28, 2011. The entries with tombstone photographs obviously are reliable, but if the entry is based only on a paper record of the interment (without a photograph), it's easy to mistype the date, so you're bound to find errors.
  15. ↑ "Find A Grave member: International Wargraves Photography Project". Find a Grave. Ancestry.com. Archived from the original on December 23, 2017. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
  16. ↑ "'Find A Grave' Cemetery Database Resources". Highlander.com. Parachute, CO. December 19, 2018. Archived from the original on December 2, 2020. Retrieved November 22, 2020.
  17. ↑ "Searching the Cemetery: Find a Grave.com". Rutherford Public Library. Rutherford, NJ. Archived from the original on October 16, 2021. Retrieved November 22, 2020.
  18. ↑ Dickerson, Melissa (2016). 10 Tips for Searching the Find a Grave website for your family history & genealogy. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 978-1534710405. OCLC 967966290.
  19. ↑ Pierre-Louis, Marian (July 11, 2015). "4 Ways to Research in a Cemetery". Legacy News Family Tree. Archived from the original on April 15, 2021. Retrieved November 22, 2020.
  20. ↑ "Claim to Fame: Medal of Honor Recipients". Find a Grave. Ancestry.com. Archived from the original on December 23, 2017. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
  21. ↑ "Claim to Fame: Religious figures". Find a Grave. Ancestry.com. Archived from the original on December 23, 2017. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
  22. ↑ "Claim to Fame: Educators". Find a Grave. Ancestry.com. Archived from the original on December 23, 2017. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
  23. ↑ "What are the standards for a famous Bio?". Find a Grave. Ancestry.com.
  24. ↑ "Designate this person as a veteran". Find A Grave. Ancestry.com. Archived from the original on June 12, 2023. Retrieved June 12, 2023.
  25. ↑ "Request to Manage". FindaGrave.com. Ancestry.com. Archived from the original on July 25, 2022. Retrieved June 8, 2022.
  26. ↑ Reid, Katie (August 25, 2019). "How Ancestry.com's Find A Grave Encourages Bad Actors and Bad Data". OneZero. Medium.com. Archived from the original on May 19, 2022. Retrieved June 2, 2022.
  27. ↑ Neill, Michael John (March 31, 2020). "FindAGrave Can Hold Off on the Recently Deceased". Rootdig.com (blog). Archived from the original on September 27, 2022. Retrieved June 8, 2022.
  28. ↑ "January 11, 2022 Find a Grave Team Memorials for the Recently Deceased". FindaGrave.com. Ancestry.com. January 11, 2022. Archived from the original on June 2, 2022. Retrieved June 2, 2022.

Sources