NSW, AUSTRALIA (formerly New York, NY, USA)

Fame aside, this website's raison d'etre is to make findable those once memorialized and later lost or forgotten - or prevent them from becoming so. Applying this rationale to my extended family, most memorials added/managed are related directly or a few degrees removed. The vast majority I've researched, discovered, visited, documented, linked since 1994. Unless part of current research, I'll transfer a memorial to anyone more closely related than I am, regardless of generation. If I've posted a photo of interest, use it, giving credit when practical and appropriate.

Regarding biographical edit requests: as appropriate to F-A-G, I try to stick to burial site, epitaph transcription and all things specific to an interment and nothing else - especially/particularly if the subject is broadly published elsewhere and the information is uncontested. The exception is when F-A-G is the singular source of information for an individual. I generally don't consider Ancestry, FamilySearch, DAR, SAR or other "2nd hand" sources as suitable citations when I do list a source. I try to work from and cite primary sources - or early and relevant genealogies. Even rock-solid information can be challenged then change with better primary documents - and when that happens, scholarly journals etc. are better locations for the new information. I'm of the opinion that F-A-G is not the place to mirror the genealogical information found elsewhere and unrelated to grave specifics. It has a broad reach and must be accurate - I welcome all corrections that better refine what belongs here!

The most meaningful memorials on Find-A-Grave are created then enhanced by many interested and dedicated volunteers working together. Regardless of generation, put the memorial in the hands of the knowledgeable - typically a direct relation with vested interest or a local enthusiast with invaluable insights. The "Family First policy of Four Generations" has become a failed excuse for the well-known few to maintain control and rack up unattended "numbers" at the expense of expanding useful information for the majority and posterity. I'm related to many interesting people who died unmarried and alone with no direct descendants - from young soldiers in battle to elderly aunts/uncles with fine achievements whose scant memorials go ignored and unconnected due to adherents of the "Four Generation" policy. I respect those who labor long hours by groundwork and online to produce vast data on Find-A-Grave. By contrast, my emphasis is connectivity of the "relative" few I knew or have come to know well. I strive to be accurate, scholarly and welcome corrections.

I'm a proponent of hypothetical or "unknown" memorials if a chance of discovery - frequently the only path to real answers; this has happened for me countless times. With the help of others, deductive hypothesis can lead to found interments when and where least expected. I've not only found individual graves this way, but entire cemeteries. In my sleuthing, I inadvertently stumbled into three ancestral cemeteries in 2011 and another in 2018 not previously found on this site and whose descriptions, interments, and transcriptions I introduced and partially or fully manage:

1) Lyon-Rawson Cemetery [Byram Neck, Greenwich, Fairfield Co., CT]
2) Solomon Gedney Burial Ground [Village of Mamaroneck, Rye, Westchester Co., NY]
3) Bailey Cemetery [Mahopac, Putnam Co., NY]
4) Christ Episcopal Church Chancel and Tower [Tarrytown, Westchester Co., NY]

I have a particular interest in design of all kinds - in this context: funerary, both graphic and literary. For this reason, I aspire to accurate transcriptions correct by line, case, font. By means of text transcriptions, Google scans the verbiage and only then does it become searchable on the internet. Few epitaphs are original and with even a few eroded words and partial phrases, the indecipherable becomes known. For those who insist photos alone suffice, text in the best photograph is as yet not picked up in a Google scan - thus undetectable by those conducting searches.

Finally, I prefer quality over quantity, recognizing that perfection takes time and you have to start somewhere.

NSW, AUSTRALIA (formerly New York, NY, USA)

Fame aside, this website's raison d'etre is to make findable those once memorialized and later lost or forgotten - or prevent them from becoming so. Applying this rationale to my extended family, most memorials added/managed are related directly or a few degrees removed. The vast majority I've researched, discovered, visited, documented, linked since 1994. Unless part of current research, I'll transfer a memorial to anyone more closely related than I am, regardless of generation. If I've posted a photo of interest, use it, giving credit when practical and appropriate.

Regarding biographical edit requests: as appropriate to F-A-G, I try to stick to burial site, epitaph transcription and all things specific to an interment and nothing else - especially/particularly if the subject is broadly published elsewhere and the information is uncontested. The exception is when F-A-G is the singular source of information for an individual. I generally don't consider Ancestry, FamilySearch, DAR, SAR or other "2nd hand" sources as suitable citations when I do list a source. I try to work from and cite primary sources - or early and relevant genealogies. Even rock-solid information can be challenged then change with better primary documents - and when that happens, scholarly journals etc. are better locations for the new information. I'm of the opinion that F-A-G is not the place to mirror the genealogical information found elsewhere and unrelated to grave specifics. It has a broad reach and must be accurate - I welcome all corrections that better refine what belongs here!

The most meaningful memorials on Find-A-Grave are created then enhanced by many interested and dedicated volunteers working together. Regardless of generation, put the memorial in the hands of the knowledgeable - typically a direct relation with vested interest or a local enthusiast with invaluable insights. The "Family First policy of Four Generations" has become a failed excuse for the well-known few to maintain control and rack up unattended "numbers" at the expense of expanding useful information for the majority and posterity. I'm related to many interesting people who died unmarried and alone with no direct descendants - from young soldiers in battle to elderly aunts/uncles with fine achievements whose scant memorials go ignored and unconnected due to adherents of the "Four Generation" policy. I respect those who labor long hours by groundwork and online to produce vast data on Find-A-Grave. By contrast, my emphasis is connectivity of the "relative" few I knew or have come to know well. I strive to be accurate, scholarly and welcome corrections.

I'm a proponent of hypothetical or "unknown" memorials if a chance of discovery - frequently the only path to real answers; this has happened for me countless times. With the help of others, deductive hypothesis can lead to found interments when and where least expected. I've not only found individual graves this way, but entire cemeteries. In my sleuthing, I inadvertently stumbled into three ancestral cemeteries in 2011 and another in 2018 not previously found on this site and whose descriptions, interments, and transcriptions I introduced and partially or fully manage:

1) Lyon-Rawson Cemetery [Byram Neck, Greenwich, Fairfield Co., CT]
2) Solomon Gedney Burial Ground [Village of Mamaroneck, Rye, Westchester Co., NY]
3) Bailey Cemetery [Mahopac, Putnam Co., NY]
4) Christ Episcopal Church Chancel and Tower [Tarrytown, Westchester Co., NY]

I have a particular interest in design of all kinds - in this context: funerary, both graphic and literary. For this reason, I aspire to accurate transcriptions correct by line, case, font. By means of text transcriptions, Google scans the verbiage and only then does it become searchable on the internet. Few epitaphs are original and with even a few eroded words and partial phrases, the indecipherable becomes known. For those who insist photos alone suffice, text in the best photograph is as yet not picked up in a Google scan - thus undetectable by those conducting searches.

Finally, I prefer quality over quantity, recognizing that perfection takes time and you have to start somewhere.