I stumbled upon Find A Grave while researching the life of my husband's grandfather. Thanks to the generosity of a member with no connection to our family, I found a well-done memorial with a photo of his tombstone and additional information from his obituary. I am thankful for the kindness and efforts of Find A Grave's many volunteers.

I now document graves of people I don't know with the hope that I can give others what was given to me.

I have spent hundreds of hours driving to places, crawling around attics, organizing, scanning, and preserving family photo collections. I have freely shared them with others for their personal use and have posted many on this website. I'm very happy to do this. It is, however, frustrating and disheartening to find these photos on the web and in historical societies with incorrect identification and no mention of my efforts.

If you would like to use any of the photos of people that I have provided for a non-commercial manner, please be very careful to associate it with the correct name, and please be kind enough to credit my efforts. A notation of "Photo provided by Caitlin E. Mears" would be greatly appreciated. If you would drop me a note to let me know where you have used a photo or photos, I would enjoy seeing what you have done. You may have information that I don't have.

Photographs that I have taken of grave markers may be used for any non-commercial purpose. Please use care to post the details correctly.

I very much respect the memorials that others have created. If I add a photograph of a tombstone or grave marker to a memorial that you manage, and you don't want it there, PLEASE let me know. I will remove it promptly.

Duplicates: I always do a search before creating a new memorial to avoid the possibility of a duplicate; however, I will delete any duplicate memorial that I create in error. Please include the memorial's reference number with your request.

That being said, if I create a memorial on May 2nd for John Tatum, and someone else creates a memorial for the same John Tatum on June 4th, the one created on June 4th is the duplicate regardless of how much information is or isn't on the memorial.

Edits: I'm happy to add or correct information on any memorial that I manage. Please be sure that the information you submit is true and provide me with the source.

Popular genealogy websites provide an abundance of information; unfortunately, not all of it is true. I will not make changes based solely on a genealogy website. Information from people closest to the person named in the memorial is often best.

Transfers: I'm open to transferring memorials of anyone not related to me. Per Find A Grave guidelines, be sure to explain your relationship in the request, and please keep in mind that I may also be related to the person named in the memorial.

I stumbled upon Find A Grave while researching the life of my husband's grandfather. Thanks to the generosity of a member with no connection to our family, I found a well-done memorial with a photo of his tombstone and additional information from his obituary. I am thankful for the kindness and efforts of Find A Grave's many volunteers.

I now document graves of people I don't know with the hope that I can give others what was given to me.

I have spent hundreds of hours driving to places, crawling around attics, organizing, scanning, and preserving family photo collections. I have freely shared them with others for their personal use and have posted many on this website. I'm very happy to do this. It is, however, frustrating and disheartening to find these photos on the web and in historical societies with incorrect identification and no mention of my efforts.

If you would like to use any of the photos of people that I have provided for a non-commercial manner, please be very careful to associate it with the correct name, and please be kind enough to credit my efforts. A notation of "Photo provided by Caitlin E. Mears" would be greatly appreciated. If you would drop me a note to let me know where you have used a photo or photos, I would enjoy seeing what you have done. You may have information that I don't have.

Photographs that I have taken of grave markers may be used for any non-commercial purpose. Please use care to post the details correctly.

I very much respect the memorials that others have created. If I add a photograph of a tombstone or grave marker to a memorial that you manage, and you don't want it there, PLEASE let me know. I will remove it promptly.

Duplicates: I always do a search before creating a new memorial to avoid the possibility of a duplicate; however, I will delete any duplicate memorial that I create in error. Please include the memorial's reference number with your request.

That being said, if I create a memorial on May 2nd for John Tatum, and someone else creates a memorial for the same John Tatum on June 4th, the one created on June 4th is the duplicate regardless of how much information is or isn't on the memorial.

Edits: I'm happy to add or correct information on any memorial that I manage. Please be sure that the information you submit is true and provide me with the source.

Popular genealogy websites provide an abundance of information; unfortunately, not all of it is true. I will not make changes based solely on a genealogy website. Information from people closest to the person named in the memorial is often best.

Transfers: I'm open to transferring memorials of anyone not related to me. Per Find A Grave guidelines, be sure to explain your relationship in the request, and please keep in mind that I may also be related to the person named in the memorial.