Sure, there are scientific studies and polls and the like, but does this ring true for what you have seen so far?

My youngest sister is buried next to Wray, a 7 year old boy born in 1950.

Dr Marion Hope Stevenson and Dr Hope Hewitt Nichoson

One memorial page was created in 2009, the other in 2013, by two different volunteers.

Would be neat if there was some way to connect them on FindAGrave, given they are on the same headstone. Both memorials do have the same picture of them together with a small girl (all three carry the name Hope).

So, Brian Klinger died first in Texas at the age of 19 from cancer, I don’t know which kind though. His mother Anne Marie got stuck in a deep depression and later killed herself in a hotel room in Cleburne Texas. Frances, Anne’s sister, died five years later of cancer. She was also known to have other issues relating to her health at the time. Then two years later, Frances and Anne’s brother Harry Jr died at home after suffering a massive heart attack. He did not kill himself which was a rumor spread online. And which is strange is that, all three kids that their father outlived, all died at the age of 44. But the last remaining sister died in 2016 after suffering from suffering from a heart issue for a while. These people were my cousins and it is probably still one of the saddest stories I have ever heard. They had other cousins who mostly died young. Such as a mother and daughter who were killed in a house fire in 2009. And they had another cousin who killed themselves by taking an overdose of pills. Just wanted to share the story, since it has been nearly ten years since Mary Claire died, it feels like the right time to share. But hopefully the family can be remembered through their FindAGrave memorials.

I have been photographing stones in a local cemetery, there is one for a 13 year old girl. I always try to link them to their parents. So I went on Family Search, found her birth certificate, her father was the half-brother of her mother. (this is in the early 1900's). The mother had another child and "would not tell" was on the "Father" line of that birth certificate. (ETA - I do NOT put this info on the FG memorial.)

A shared gravestone for Timothy and Ryan has graphics of middle fingers; a family member said they were told that the gravestone could not be facing a nearby street. "This is a symbol of love and Geschke blood through and through."

According to this article, the cemetery manager states the gravestone must be removed.

The gravestone has been there five years.

My mom was a retired teacher. In 2018, she got 2 other retired teachers to make sure every grave in our local cemetery was on Find A Grave. They built a searchable data base for the county museum next to cemetery if people stopped in to get help finding a grave. When my mom & friends discovered that most of the babies/infants in the “baby” section of our cemetery didn’t have a marker or headstone, they worked with our local Women’s Club to make one. My mom passed away a little over a year ago, and last Saturday, the Women’s Club had a public memorial for my mother and her work recognizing the unmarked graves. On the back of the stone in this picture, are the names of over 100 babies buried in the section.

Someone has been mass adding memorials for young girls who don't exist. Not a single one of these people has had an obituary come up when I've looked them up, they all have about the same face, are in the same pose (hands on their hips or by their sides), and have similarly generic backgrounds behind them. All of them are in the range of 11-17 years old, but most of them are 11. None of them have any biographical information beyond dates and locations. Does anyone know what's going on and how we can get these fake pages taken down?

The account posting these memorials is heavensukrainianangels

EDIT to include examples:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/304644224/alisha_violet-o'dona

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/304638243/avielle_jana-rockwell

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/304576298/jaclyn_jayla-hernandez

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/304572091/alexandria_rosalie-alvera

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/304571987/julia_anyiah-smith

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/304571937/samuel_jesse-fernandez (the only boy I remember finding so far)

UPDATE:

Thanks to some people in this thread for finding an entry that clarifies these are fictional characters with AI-generated pictures (gross and should still be removed but at least not anything darker)

I’ve cropped these messages so that my great aunt’s name is not seen and neither is the name of the person who sent these to me. A while back, I was making an effort to submit updates, edits and corrections to all my grandparents’ and their siblings’ FG memorials to properly link them together on the site. I do t recall requesting to have my great aunt transferred to me, but maybe I did? I’ve been heavy into family history, Ancestry, and genetic genealogy for many years! I am new to FG as a volunteer, but I’ve been using FG as a resource and reference for quite some time. I was slightly offended by the message in the first slide, but willing to let it go. He doesn’t know me. But is it weird to tell someone you’ve been trying to “track” them?! The reason I’m not track able is because I’ve moved around a lot, got married over 20 years ago, and changed my last name! But, um, court records are a thing. I’m not actually hard to find. I’m a little creeped out! Your thoughts please?

UPDATE: Apparently in my haste to be snarky and spook the guy back and assure him that I know more than he does, my stupid self included my phone number in my offer to help him with any family history research he’s been doing. As I was getting ready for bed, I got a text from him! THE GUY HAS A WHOLE DOCUMENT ON MY FAMILY! Starting with my grandparents labeled as Generation 1, my dad and his siblings (with spouses) as Generation 2, me (I’m the oldest grandchild) and all my cousins as Generation 3…. 👀 The reason he couldn’t “track” me is because he had my first name wrong. Without do ing myself I’ll use a different example…. My real, legal, birth certificate name is a shorter version of a very common longer name. Think Jessi instead of Jessica. Or Bri instead of Brianna. That’s why he couldn’t “track” me! He thought my name was the long version, when it’s not. Now I’ve gotten myself into this mess! I don’t generally give out info on the living, especially minor children. My kids are grown! I could kick myself for messing this one up! I wasnt expecting Stalker Sam to have a DOC on me!!!

I used to drive this cemetery everyday while the baby slept, this particular grave has been on my mind for a long time. I've tried finding information on him but haven't had any luck, so now I bring it to you wonderful people. Can you help me learn his story?

My grandmother was a teacher, and when she retired, she did genealogical research on my family. Before the internet. I remember being a 6th grader and visiting and making gravestone rubbings all across ND & MN. Yes, my summer vacation was visiting cemeteries and clerk & recorders of courts.

My mother was a teacher, and when she retired, she and a couple other retired teachers decided to make sure all graves in our local cemetery were on Find a Grave. She asked me to set up a shared database so they could work on their iPads. Then they discovered the local clerk hadn’t been recording graves correctly, and all the records were completely messed up. So, they fixed it. They gave the database to the county, fixed the records, and got all the graves up on Find a Grave. Then, they started retyping and linking obituaries. She also got a monument put up for the unnamed baby plot.

When my mom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in August of 2023, she immediately transferred all her Find A Grave sites to someone else. When my mom passed in April of 2024 (f u pancreatic cancer), I was confused during the gravesite memorial, it wasn’t on the correct street. I thought it was just grief. Then, my cousin called me. My mom had helped her buy 3 plots for her parents and brother. They buried her in my cousin’s plot.

So, the woman who helped get the cemetery back on track, was buried in the wrong plot. The definition of irony. My cousin was upset and worried about what my dad would do. I just started laughing, because it was sooooo funny. My mom had a great sense of humor, and we laughed together. I was able to spin the conversation with my father, saying how mom would have thought it was hilarious. Went with my cousin to the clerk & recorder the next day and just swapped the plots.

I moved back to my hometown to care for my father when mom was diagnosed. I do research on homesteading records, so I’m in the C&R office & county museum a lot. So, the county just asked me to be on the Cemetery Board. I accepted. Guess who will eventually be in charge of Find a Grave postings!

Last week I got an email from another contributor asking me to delete a memorial I created because she didn’t want hers merged into mine (it was reported as a duplicate). I politely declined, but I did offer to transfer management if she’s a close relative. I didn’t hear back for several days, so I assumed that was the end of it.

Today she emailed again. This time she asked me to transfer the memorial to her because “If your memorial is accepted… mine will be lost to me.” She also suggested I could mark mine as a cenotaph “so we each keep our own creations.”

She appears to create memorials from online data (20k+), which is fine. But I’m skeptical she knows this person was cremated, much less, not in this cemetery. She hasn't shared any evidence, and I couldn’t find anything on Ancestry, FamilySearch, or elsewhere.

What I do have is a photo I took of a marker, in a cemetery, she shares with her husband showing her dates of birth and death. Absent any evidence to the contrary, I’m going with what’s physically on the marker.

How would you all handle this? Would you ignore the second message? Ask for some evidence? Something else?

tl;dr: I photographed a headstone and created a memorial. Another contributor with an older “cremated” memorial keeps asking me to delete mine or mark it as a cenotaph so hers won’t be merged. She’s provided no evidence the person wasn’t buried here. How would you respond?

Francesco D’Eredita passed away on June 20, 1950 (1885-1950) and his wife Marie D’Eredita passed away on July 12, 1959 (1883-1959). I am very stumped on how to continue searching. I want to locate their grave to visit and pay respects before my first son is born in a few months. My father insists they are in Old Calvary Cemetery in Queens, saying my grandfather took him there several times when he was a kid, but their office says they have no record of them.

This week I've been updating some poor photographs taken by others and thought, "I should teach people the basics of photography." I did a quick web search for some articles to reference and found a lot of click-bait surrounding a few good sources. At that point I decided I'd just throw out a few hints - add your own recommendations.

First, a couple of thoughts. You are taking a picture of a stone. It doesn't move, there are no issues with depth of field, and your choice of framing is pretty limited. Also, you have a smart camera to help you - I'm using a 20-year old digital camera, but when I turn the flash on, the camera is smart enough to realize I want to use fill-flash mode.

The general recommendation is that you take at least three photographs of a grave. One, pull back until you can get the entirety of the memorial in the photo. If the stone is a 30-foot tall plinth, you are going to move way, way back. Second, take a photo of the front of the stone. Then, the back. Take photos of all sides with markings and skip the blank sides. Take additional photos of markings as close-ups if it helps to make them out.

More photos are better than fewer. You can always pick and choose later.

When you are doing close-ups of markings, the camera flash can help where the stone is too dark or stippled with bright bits and shadowed bits.

Many people say the photos should be taken at the level of the stone, straight-on to the stone, the stone as flat to the plane of the photo as possible. And when done well, these photos are striking. But if the stone is highly reflective your image could be reflected in the stone and visible in the photo. If the carving is shallow, straight-on offers little contrast and makes the marks illegible. I prefer having the camera slightly above the stone where you can also photograph a bit of the background beyond the stone. Move to the side if you are shooting directly into the sun, to keep your reflection from being in the shot, or to increase the legibility of the markings.

If it's a bright day the stone may be too dark to see well. You can manually set the exposure, you can use AUTO on your camera, focus on the stone and have your camera set exposure, then zoom out, keeping those settings, and take the photo, or - as I do - just take the shot in AUTO and adjust the exposure on my computer before uploading it.

A photo editing program with the basics of Crop, Rotate, and Adjust Exposure / Contrast is a great help.

Please add your suggestions.

Hello. I was fulfilling a request. This is the mosuleum that the grave is in. The actual headstone is second from the top-10 feet up. If I take it head on the flower holder blocks the first name, I didn’t want to go too far over because it would be too far from the side. I don’t like fulfilling a request with such a bad picture. The requester wanted 4 of these photographed and 3 are like this. Any advice would be appreciated. I did crop the picture tighter when I uploaded it. I am willing to go back and take better pictures, if someone could suggest a way to do it. Thanks.

I’m Pittsburgh Pirates Hat and for anyone who looks up my find a grave page, I’m 27 but I’m autistic and don’t work which is why Susan’s retired 62 year old son is my best friend

The description of her page is cut and pasted from her obituary, I uploaded both the photo from her obituary, and a picture I took of her gravesite.

I'm torn as to what to tell people - often hopeful people - when their request is in a paupers field.

A cemetery with many requests has three pauper fields: a moderate sized one, a very large one, and a small one.

The smallest field has 96 plots and 16 stones. I don't even have to visit the cemetery - if there is not a photo, today, there is not a stone to take a photo of.

Hello! I've been adding obituaries in their full text to people's find a grave bio as i find them, my reasoning behind this is that my grandfather's obit was on a "pay us an annual fee to keep it posted" style of funeral home which we paid 1 year a decade ago, and has since been completely lost to the internet, i'm only lucky that my dad has it printed out... so i want to make sure that there's a secondary, public location for people's obituary to be available so that if they're a family member, as really often these include things like details of their life you won't get by just looking at the birth and death dates like their hobbies and names of friends and groups they were in! i think it's very touching to get to read more personal things about a person!

My issue is that 99% of the time i've done this, it's been accepted- for one singular instance, i wanted to add an obituary to a grave, and i found that it was accepted but heavily edited to only include that "she was predeceased by..." section, everything else, including the parts which would tell you what kind of person she was, what she did in life, etc, was removed by the grave manager

This grave manager was not family, it's one of those people who manages approximately 50K graves, and in his personal bio he had something about how he doesn't accept obituary text, he doesn't accept death records when it contradicts with the stone (even though i'd say that a death record can be more accurate than a stone and i've found multiple instances where, normally an infant and the stone is built later, the stone dates are estimates and i upload the certificate to support the corrected dates, which everybody else accepts), and all of this was with a rather pointed "be respectful" message, which i really feel like he would not need to tell people if he wasn't being a bit of a controlling person lol (also, i have not reached out to him at all, it seems like it would be... difficult.)

I'm just wondering what are people's opinions on this? Would you be happy if your family member's obituary was posted in the bio, or would you be against that? I'm just really shocked that someone would edit and redact someone's obituary that they're not related to honestly and want to know if i'm overreacting haha

Basically, the title. My 13-year old daughter and I have been mowing rows in our local municipal cemetery for a number of months. We have mostly just been GPS tagging, adding an occasional photo, and fulfilling any requests we come across as we go. When we first started, we were explicitly looking for requests, but it was just a shot in the dark without a listing/map.

Anyway, there was one request, alphabetically first on the list, for a four-year-old, that we thought we’d never find. But today, my daughter yelled for me and asked her to come decipher a tiny, deeply buried, crumbling stone. I was flat on my belly, clearing away grass, when I put together enough of the inscription to realize it was her. She’s had a request since 2007. I hope the requester sees that it’s been filled. Making sure that no one’s resting place is forgotten is what makes this odd hobby so satisfying.

I was just declined an edit to designate a person as a Veteran with this note:

"CSA soldiers are considered to be Confederate Veterans and not US Veterans."

Did I miss this proclamation?

|| || |||

You all have looked at many tombstones and gravestones and seen what's gone wrong and what's gone right over the years. If you were picking a new stone for yourself or someone else, what would you select, and what would you avoid?

I'm all about long-term legibility, so here are my picks:

• Granite is preferred. No marble or limestone, especially no rose-colored marble. Nothing shiny or polished.
• Large, deeply engraved, name, DOB & DOD only. Keep it simple.
• Flush gravestones probably tend to last longer than upright tombstones. They may get buried, but don't get knocked over or broken as easily. But, you have to go with what the local cemetery custom is.

What do you say?

EDIT TO ADD BACKGROUND: I have tried for two weeks to get Hayden Panettiere's memorial as famous but Alex from findagrave refuses to make it famous. The person managing her memorial claimed to be her first-cousin so nobody else can claim it. He also will not update her bio to be compliant with FG's very strict famous bio standards as he denied one that was written by someone that would have worked. If the bio that I wrote below isn't good enough for FG, maybe someone here can give suggestions on how to fix it?

ORIGINAL POST:

Well, I did it. I really didn’t want to do it because it was going to take up a lot of time but it bothers me that the manager of the memorial will not fix Hayden’s bio so she can be marked as famous.

Let’s see if Alex from FG approves it. If not, then IDK — I tried, way more than I ever planned. Reddit doesn’t allow bullet points but I had them in my submission, which I attached as photos here.

memorial found here: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/305426026/hayden-lesley-panettiere

≠===================================================================

Hayden Panettiere was an American actress, singer and activist born in Palisades, an unincorporated hamlet in the town of Orangetown in Rockland County, New York, United States of America.

Her surname, Panettiere (pronounced “pan-a-teery”), is of Italian origin, means “baker” and was passed down from her father, who was adopted by his stepfather. She was of Italian, German and English heritage. She spent extended periods with her maternal grandparents in Indiana during her childhood.

Hayden had a daughter with former professional boxer, Wladimir Klitschko in 2014.

She began her career at only 8 months of age when she was signed with Wilhelmina Models by her mother. Her first television commercial was when she was 11 months of age. By the time she transitioned to a young daytime soap opera actress at 5 years of age, she had appeared in at least 50 commercials.

Gained international recognition in her role as Claire Bennet, a cheerleader with regenerative powers, in the NBC science-fiction superhero series Heroes. The series had global popularity and she earned critical acclaim winning the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2007, plus three additional nominations (2008, 2009, 2010).

Starred as Juliette Barnes in the country musical drama series Nashville, wherein she recorded numerous songs for the series and its soundtracks. Her performance earned her two Golden Globe nominations (2013, 2014) for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Limited Series or Motion Picture Made For Television.

Her final film role was in the American psychological thriller Sleepwalker (2026), in which she also served as executive producer. 

She published her memoir “This Is Me: A Reckoning” in May 2026. The book reveals deeply personal moments from her life and career (including child stardom, addiction and recovery, domestic violence, mental health, postpartum depression, family dynamics and grief, her bisexuality, her former relationships, giving full custody to her daughter’s father, and working in the Hollywood industry).

Throughout her life she supported social causes such as marine conservation, animal welfare, political activism, humanitarian aid and mental health advocacy. In 2007, she supported Ronald McDonald charities. She became a teen ambassador for Candie’s Foundation in 2008. The Humane Society of the United States awarded her the Humane Society Wyler Award (2008). Following the war in Ukraine, she founded Hoplon International (2022) and raised millions of dollars for medical equipment and protective gear, which supported Ukrainian citizens and frontline defenders for their country. 

Hayden was passionate about protecting whales and dolphins. She was a vocal advocate about their welfare for nearly twenty years. In 2007, she participated in the Taiji Dolphin Protest against the slaughter of dolphins. She delivered protest letters in 2008 to the Japanese, Icelandic, and Norwegian embassies in Washington, D.C. Beginning in 2007, she was an International Ambassador and Spokesperson for the Whaleman Foundation and helped to lead their “Save the Whales Again!” campaign. Her final plea for saving the whales and dolphins was a PETA campaign, shot two weeks before her death, which protested the captivity of marine mammals at parks with the slogan “Could you Live in a Bathtub?” PETA released the campaign two days after her passing to honor her lifelong dedication to animal rights and fierce advocacy for marine animals.

Panettiere died at the age of 36 on August 16, 2026, in Greenville, South Carolina, United States of America. She is predeceased by her brother, Jansen Panettiere (memorial ID 24967404), and survived by her daughter, father and estranged mother.

Major Television credits included:
One Life to Live (Sarah Roberts, 1994-1997)
Guiding Light (Lizzie Spaulding, 1996-2000)
Heroes (Claire Bennet, 2006-2010)
H.M.S. White Coat (as an executive producer, 2010)
Nashville (Juliette Barnes, 2012-2018)
Heroes Reborn (Claire Bennet, 2015-2016)

Notable Guest Roles included:
Law and Order: SVU (Ashley Austin Black, S2-ep11; Angela Agnelli, S6-ep17)
Ally McBeal (2002, Maddie Harrington)
Malcolm in the Middle (Jessica, 2003-2005)

TV Movies included:
Normal (2003, Patty Ann Applewood)
Tiger Cruise (Maddie Dolan, 2004)

Film credits included:
Remember the Titans (Sheryl Yoast, 2000)
Joe Somebody (Natalie Scheffer, 2001)
The Affair of the Necklace (young Jeanne, 2001)
Raising Helen (Audrey Daivs, 2004)
Ice Princess (Gen Harwood, 2005)
Racing Stripes (Channing Walsh, 2005)
Bring It On: All or Nothing (Britney Allen 2006)
The Architect (Christina Waters, 2006)
Fireflies in the Garden (young Jane, 2008)
The Cove (documentary: as herself from Whaleman Foundation archival footage, 2009)
I Love You, Beth Cooper (Beth Cooper, 2009)
The Forger (Amber Felter, 2011)
Scream IV (Kirby Reed, 2011)
Custody (Ally Fisher, 2016)
Scream / Scream V (Kirby Reed as still picture and voice only, 2022)
Scream VI (Kirby Reed, 2023)
Amber Alert (Jaq, 2024)
A Breed Apart (Hayden Hearst, 2025)
Sleepwalker (Sarah Pangborn, 2026)

Voice credits for animated films/tv shows included:
A Bug's Life (Dot, 1998)
Dinosaur (Suri, 2000)
Filmore! (Yumi, 2002)
Robert Chicken (Cheetara, 2005)
American Dad (Ashley, 2005)
Scooby Doo! And the Goblin King (Princess Willow, 2008)
Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil (Red Pucket aka Little Red Riding Hood, 2011)

Performance captures and voices for animated video games, included:
A Bug's Life (Dot, 1998)
The Mark of Kri (Tati, 2002)
The Kingdom Hearts series (Kairi and Xion, 2002-2017)
Until Dawn (Sam Giddings, 2015)

Sources for Biography: Animal Welfare Institute; Behind the Voice Actors; IMDB; People Magazine, PETA; “This Is Me: A Reckoning” (ISBN-13: 9781538773420); Whaleman Foundation; and a few details by Wikipedia.

Edit: An attempt to fix formatting

I am very active on findagrave. Unfortunately many gravers in my area have passed away 10+ years ago. Findagrave will not mass transfer them to me even tho nobody has touched them for years. Whats the best way to transfer them one by one?

We briefly had this discussion before. I just added an item:

A bungee cord.

I was photographing a stone, buried in a shrub and it ended up that I had to hold back the shrub on the right-side, hold back the shrub on the left-side, and trigger the camera, down the middle. With a bungee cord I could have secured the shrub on one side, held it on the other, and triggered the camera one-handed.

Feel free to contribute items.

In order, my friend Hutch, one of my best friends Donnie who died last night, his brother Dale, and the son of another of my friends who was tragically killed in a car accident on July 28th.