So many people have come before us to contribute their DNA to our family trees and as I unravel the roots of my family I so appreciate people who have gone into the cemeteries to photograph tombstones and spend countless hours transcribing records so I can document my family. I would love to be able to help others find out more information about their family ties and I don't want anyone to be forgotten, so I love that this website gives us the tools to do that.

If I have created a memorial page for anyone related to you that falls within the Find a Grave guidelines, (vertical relationships, not sideways) please let me know. I hold to the Find a Grave rules on transfer requests. I am more than happy to add anything you want to pages and am quick to update. You may add photos and notes to any page whether you maintain them or not.

One note also about getting pages from inactive members that I would like to address. Many have created their own family pages and think they can have them safe and sound without being on this site for awhile. I can't transfer them in good conscience because they can come back at any time and ask for their pages back. Some people have to go inactive for surgeries or have upheavals in their lives, so they take a leave hoping to come back to their pages later. Find a Grave has entrusted to my care some of those pages, so I'm holding them in trust and will only transfer for close vertical relationships.

To get anything added to a page, please use the EDIT tab on the upper right corner and then the top line that says "suggest . ." Also use this method to add additional information to put in dates and places, and the new tab to link children & married couples. Hooray! The linking tool is built into the edit tab now, so please use it.

I have been a professional photographer for 37 years and I know how dear to the heart of a photographer the copyright is of a photo. However, in the case of my tombstone photos, if you would like to use them on other pages like Ancestry.com, feel free to do that but please have the courtesy of telling where you got it. "Photo by Sandy VanderTol" would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

With regard to memorials which mention the names of living people, I follow the guidelines of this site:

"What about the privacy of living family members?
An individual's right to privacy disappears when they are deceased. The opinions of the relatives of the deceased fall on all sides of the question. Some people are angry to find a loved one when they come to Find A Grave, even if the memorial was added by another relative, as is usually the case, and some people are elated and send us notes of thanks for building an online memorial to their family member. If an immediate family member contacts us and wants information removed, we generally do so as a matter of respect for their wishes but we treat each request on a case by case basis. The names of living survivors will be removed from the biography section of a memorial upon request."

So many people have come before us to contribute their DNA to our family trees and as I unravel the roots of my family I so appreciate people who have gone into the cemeteries to photograph tombstones and spend countless hours transcribing records so I can document my family. I would love to be able to help others find out more information about their family ties and I don't want anyone to be forgotten, so I love that this website gives us the tools to do that.

If I have created a memorial page for anyone related to you that falls within the Find a Grave guidelines, (vertical relationships, not sideways) please let me know. I hold to the Find a Grave rules on transfer requests. I am more than happy to add anything you want to pages and am quick to update. You may add photos and notes to any page whether you maintain them or not.

One note also about getting pages from inactive members that I would like to address. Many have created their own family pages and think they can have them safe and sound without being on this site for awhile. I can't transfer them in good conscience because they can come back at any time and ask for their pages back. Some people have to go inactive for surgeries or have upheavals in their lives, so they take a leave hoping to come back to their pages later. Find a Grave has entrusted to my care some of those pages, so I'm holding them in trust and will only transfer for close vertical relationships.

To get anything added to a page, please use the EDIT tab on the upper right corner and then the top line that says "suggest . ." Also use this method to add additional information to put in dates and places, and the new tab to link children & married couples. Hooray! The linking tool is built into the edit tab now, so please use it.

I have been a professional photographer for 37 years and I know how dear to the heart of a photographer the copyright is of a photo. However, in the case of my tombstone photos, if you would like to use them on other pages like Ancestry.com, feel free to do that but please have the courtesy of telling where you got it. "Photo by Sandy VanderTol" would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

With regard to memorials which mention the names of living people, I follow the guidelines of this site:

"What about the privacy of living family members?
An individual's right to privacy disappears when they are deceased. The opinions of the relatives of the deceased fall on all sides of the question. Some people are angry to find a loved one when they come to Find A Grave, even if the memorial was added by another relative, as is usually the case, and some people are elated and send us notes of thanks for building an online memorial to their family member. If an immediate family member contacts us and wants information removed, we generally do so as a matter of respect for their wishes but we treat each request on a case by case basis. The names of living survivors will be removed from the biography section of a memorial upon request."