Anyone use Findagrave.com?

[EdJS]

It can't find the graves of any of my dead grandparents. One I know is in the Los Angeles area, two are in the Montreal area. My father's father was killed in WWII somewhere in Ukraine (nobody knows exactly where) so I'll give it a pass on that.

[Three Wolves In Snow]

Originally Posted by Clark Park

Back in the '90's I lost my parents within two years of each other, and also my best friend.

Expressing grief and finding closure is not an easy thing. Something that has worked for me was creating "memorial pages" with the cemetery information on Find A Grave - Millions of Cemetery Records. On this site you are able to not only list your dearly departed, but write a brief biography of that person and post pictures. Other can leave "virtual flowers" on your memorial page. Many people from all over who never knew my folks have browsed the pages I created and left very kind messages. I found it to be worthwhile. In seeing other people's memorials I was moved by the heartfelt remembrances people have shared.

Have any of you participated in this "online community of grief" as I call it?

I used it when I was trying to piece together my family tree on ancestry.com. I found a relative's grave AND photo on that site. It is now bookmarked as I continue the search. I'm so glad this site was created.

[NWGirl74]

Both my grandfathers had memorials set up by others who just like to contribute to the site and I've had those transferred to me. There's a small cemetery near my house and I've taken pictures there for others. For some reason, I don't get the photo requests for other cemeteries in this area anymore.

[flower54]

I found the sight to be very helpfull. I visited one of the cemetaries and the info was correct. A big Thank You to all those that take the time to take the pictures and information for the sight. I sure do appreciate it!

[Marcy1210]

I found the grave of my great-grandfather's brother who I thought lived and died in Wisconsin, here in Tucson. He apparently came here to cure his TB. There was a picture of the grave, but the biography was way off. I wrote to the people who posted the biography info and asked them to correct it. They were really snippy, but they did it. Their posted correction was also very snippy. The other graves of relatives I've found were wonderful, though. I really love that site.

[robertpolyglot]

I lost one of my best friends from HS during college. There was a trio of us during HS that hung around, and spent every summer day at his house because he had the in-ground pool, and lots of other neighborhood kids from the public HS showed up. I found out during finals week of my junior year in college that he was involved in a car accident in the Miami area, where the family had moved. When I went to Miami for the first time, years after, I made it a point to visit the actual grave. It was really tough. It was the first friend I had that had died. All the memories rush through your head as you stand there in disbelief.

Thanks for the link. I will have to look through it.

ETA: I've looked up some college friends/acquaintances who died and found no matches, with exact states and years of birth/death.

[ceg0720]

I've used this site since my brother's death in 2008. I added both my parents (and pictures and connections to my brother). The site also directed me to a government agency in England that listed names of all their deceased. Found out they had the wrong last names for my maternal grandparents (plus an uncle) so I wrote to them and they corrected the names. In the meantime I also found out were in England they were buried so I added them to the find-a-grave site (with the connection to my parents and brother). I would hope that this will help any of our family find the information that they might be looking for in the future.

[kevxu]

I use it, as I think I have posted before, and I have added graves to the site. Just last week I put some information on the grave of an aunt. Within a day a person contacted me who had taken photos of all the gravestones in the cemetery. She had photos of my grandfather's entire family plot, and, furthermore, she had obits for my grandfather, grandmother, and two for my sister....none of these obits are online, and as I live in Europe I would have no way of researching the local papers in the U.S. It was a boon of information that clarified a number of things for me. I was very grateful to this man and woman for their work, and their help to me.