8 Comments
Jul 20Liked by Daniel Loftus

Apparently they've already addressed these bogus memorials. I've always found Find-A-Grave site Support responsive. I know a lot of people like to get in digs at the site, but they're managing a user created site of over 238 million memorials. It is disturbing some nut is out there creating fake memorials. Thanks for raising the flag and getting it addressed.

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Indeed, Nick — however I’ve had mixed experiences with them. I edited my post to reflect that appropriate action had been taken by Find a Grave.

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Great research on a phenomenon I’ve been seeing all across online genealogy for several years. The number of errors and volume of misinformation have skyrocketed! As someone who has been involved in family history research for decades, I understand there’s a learning curve involved and mistakes happen, but so much of what I’m coming across just defies common sense! It’s like folks are more interested in “finishing” than getting things right. Anyway, thanks for bringing attention to the Find a Grave issue - and the reminder that the rule of genealogy (and I dare say life) should always be quality over quantity.

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Really interesting. I've never used that reverse image tool, but I will in the future. What started me to add my ancestors to Find A Grave, and also look at my other relatives already posted, I found on my father's memorial my stepmother listed as his only wife, and his children were hers. There was no link to Mom's memorial. I set that straight. Thanks for the post.

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Jul 20·edited Jul 20

Great catch! I don't understand why people have to do stupid stuff. My answer to these fools who do this type of postings on Find-A-Grave and elsewhere, Get a Life!

I've also seen crazy photography for an ancestor born in the 1640's. I asked the original poster to take it down. I got nothing but non-sense back from the poster. I've made sure to share how these images are non-sensical on the Ancestry page. Unfortunately, MANY had already attached it to their tree.

It would help on Find-A-Grave and other sites to be able to report new issues on a "report" button.

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I recently received a hint for Find a Grave for an ancestor who lived in the mid to late 1800's. Attached was a photo of a man in a suit with a hairstyle that was clearly 20th century. I knew there was no way that picture was of my ancestor. You really have to double-check everything.

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Proper dating of the photograph can tell you if the person matches the statistics given. In the case of Margaret Salsbury Whim, the image was taken in the late 1850s to early 1860s and she is an adult in the image. So it’s clear that she is not the person that the poster of the image said she was.

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Oh, I figured as much but I wouldn’t have been able to date it myself, as I don’t know enough about photo dating which is why I didn’t make any presumptions in my post. Thank you for sharing that, Ava.

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