FindAGrave Volunteering - A Great Way to Pay It Forward

Volunteers are a critical and valuable part of family history. Indexing is done by volunteers. Submitting your family tree, sources and photos is volunteering. Helping teach someone how to get started on their genealogy is volunteering. It is a key part of what makes this work roll forward and complete family puzzles.

In this post I'd like to make a plug for Find A Grave. This is a fantastic site that is what it is thanks to volunteers. If you haven't had a chance to check it out...go...now! You don't need an account to search and it's free!

Find A Grave homepage

Enter in what information you know about the person you are searching for. A last name is required to do a search. You can check the box(es) to include information such as nickname or maiden name as well as a partial surname search if you are unsure how the name was spelled.

✍TAKE NOTE: I generally leave birth and death dates blank in case I have incorrect information. If I know what state they died in I will include that - otherwise I start with the location blank and narrow it down from there.

Find A Grave Search 

In this case, I put in a general search for an ancestor in my tree. Originally there were 48 possible matches so I included the state that she lived in before she died.

Hulda's Headstone

I now have the name of the cemetery that Hulda is buried in as well as the exact location of the cemetery. If I were to visit, I would know to go to the Urn Garden. Thanks to a volunteer, there is a picture of the headstone for Hulda. I now also have information on Charles and Clarence as well as dates.

💎GENEALOGY GEM: If I came to this page and there wasn't a picture but I had one in my possession, I could add it to the website for others to see. If I wanted a picture of the headstone, I could click on "Request Photo" and it would be sent to volunteers in the area and they could "Claim" the request.

Uploading photos of your family members headstones and plots in a cemetery is a wonderful way to volunteer to other members of your family that may be searching for the same person you have information on. Thanks to many volunteers, people that are not able to get to cemeteries where their loved ones are buried can request photos to be taken so that they can see what the headstones or family plots look like.

By creating an account you can sign up to become a volunteer and take pictures for others searching for loved ones final places of rest. Going to get photos of a loved ones headstone? Take a moment to look up the cemetery to see if there are any photo requests for that cemetery.

✍TAKE NOTE: If you have location on your camera or phone that you are taking the photos with, this will input the GPS location of the headstone making it easier to locate should a family want to come see the headstone themselves.

With an account you are also able to transcribe photos that volunteers have submitted to Find A Grave making the database searchable.

If you are an avid photographer, looking for a way to pay it forward or just looking for a kind act to do...stop by your local cemetery and see if any photo requests have been placed. Thanks for paying it forward!