31 Mar 2023

The person who has nothing to boast of but their illustrious ancestors is like a potato plant -- the only good belonging to them is under the ground.
*****
If you'd like to contact me about a person of interest, please do so by using the "Suggest other corrections" field on their particular memorial. My additional contact information can be found below.
*****
Back in the '50's, my dad began researching our ancestry and worked on this project for over 70 years, up until his death . I started helping him in the '60's.

Perhaps you're looking at this page to see if you might be related to me.

You can check out some of my relatives by looking through the family links on my parent's memorials.

My Mom's memorial.

My Dad's memorial.

I finally got around to taking a DNA test using ANCESTRY in December 2019. Sure wish I hadn't waited so long. The number of results showing DNA matches is immense.

Even after all these years, it looks as if I have an enormous search ahead to locate my ancestors!

Starting with my two parents, I have to find
4 grandparents
8 great grandparents
16 second great grandparents
32 third great grandparents
64 fourth great grandparents
128 fifth great grandparents
256 sixth great grandparents
512 seventh great grandparents
1024 eight great grandparents
2048 ninth great grandparents
4096 tenth great grandparents

I've read on some profile pages where that person has "completed" the search on their side and are now researching their spouse's. Some of them even accomplished that in less than 5 years of research. I'm impressed.

If you are a member of ancestry.com and have not taken the Ancestry DNA test, you're missing out on the experience of using an extraordinary research tool.

I subscribed to newspapers.com in 2017 as a stand alone subscription rather than joining through ancestry.com. It's cost is about $10.00 per month. I think it's a great bang for your bucks.
*****
This may have existed for a while but I only noticed it today, 10 March 2022, that Find A grave has changed their transfer "guidelines".

Memorial transfer "requirements" are no longer limited to direct ancestors or direct descendants.
On this day - 10 Mar 2022 - Find A Grave gives this explanation as to memorial transfers.

"If the memorial in question is a relative to you (within our transfer guidelines) and the memorial manager is not family, then they must transfer the memorial. If they refuse to transfer the memorial or do not respond within a reasonable amount of time, contact [email protected] and we will work on it for you. Our transfer guidelines include these close relationships: child, spouse/PARTNER, sibling, parent, grandchild, great-grandchild, grandparent, great-grandparent, NIECE/NEPHEW, GREAT-NIECE/NEPHEW, AUNT/UNCLE, GREAT-AUNT/UNCLE, or FIRST COUSIN. This would include ADOPTIVE, STEP and IN-LAW versions of these relationships."
*****
23 Jun 2021

Well, today I'm wound up tighter than a rubber band on the propeller of a balsa wood airplane!

It seems that many "contributors" are guilty of holding the memorials hostage that they've created and are not cooperating with other contributors. They didn't even know or are not related to the person whose memorial they maintain. Were they related, they would put forth more effort to have correct information entered.

Just because a headstone/tombstone has S. B. White engraved on it rather than Samuel Bradley White, it doesn't mean S.B. was Mr. White's nickname. Prices of headstones, other than size and embellishments, are based on the number of characters that are to be engraved. Perhaps the person obtaining the headstone either didn't want to or couldn't afford to add any more information. Many headstones only include the birth and death year rather than day, month and year because all those additional numbers also increase the cost.

The same goes for his wife, Marlie Louise BLACK White. She happened to like Louise better therefore that's what she went by. Her headstone might say Louise B. White. That doesn't mean she didn't have a first name or that B. was her middle initial. It was just less expensive to add fewer names. You argue that Marlie doesn't appear on the headstone so you refuse to add it. But her maiden name of Black isn't written on the headstone either and yet you include it in the maiden name field. You just pick 'n choose what you feel like adding claiming "it might cause duplicates". That's a poor excuse. These days, duplicates are easy enough to merge. Another thing I often see … The headstone might say Marlie "Louise" B. White. That does not mean Louise was her nickname, it's just what she went by.

Mr. and Mrs. Peter Perfect boast that they "REFUSE TO LINK TO UNKNOWN LOCATION BURIALS. "
Find a Grave DOES ALLOW Unknown burials to be added. No place have I found where Find a Grave says DO NOT LINK TO THEM. Just who do you think you're helping … Find a Grave? If Find a Grave didn't want you to link family members to them, why are Unknown burials even allowed in the first place? You certainly aren't helping anyone. Does it just make you feel better or more powerful? Besides if you add the link, it might give someone a clue as to where they might look for the burial location.

I've also had edits declined by Mr. and Mrs. Peter Perfect for those that were cremated because I didn't know the location of the cremains. There are literally unlimited means for their disposition. I know one lady that carries her husband's ashes around in the trunk of her car so he goes to the grocery store, WalMart and he has even been to Disney World a couple of times. Ashes can be buried, placed in a columbarium, made into jewelry and given to relatives and friends, they can be mixed with ink to be tatoos, they can be loaded into shotgun shells and given to hunting buddies. And, I suppose, if the person was not well thought of by the responsible party taking charge of the cremains, they could have been flushed. Whatever the means of the disposition, maybe, just maybe, it's none of your business or mine.

As yet, I haven't had an edit declined when a person's body was donated to science but it wouldn't surprise me. I'm guessing those negative contributors think a donated body is forever a science project but that's not what happens. Remains may be distributed to assorted states, and after their usefulness, cremains or remains may be buried in marked graves, unmarked mass graves or sent back home to family.

Another annoying claim: "DON'T ADD DEATH CERTIFICATES on memorials that I maintain. They may cause embarrassment and aren't helpful anyway." So what's embarrassing? How they died? Death certificates are important for Genealogists. If you don't think so, then you're not one.

Yes, sometimes some of the information on a death certificate is wrong because the informant was not entirely "informed" and was making SWAG's. Aside from cause of death, these certificates offer a wealth of information to include some or all of the following:
Name, sex, birth date, birth location, death date, death location, hospital name, residence at time of death, marital status, surviving spouse's name, whether they served in military, father's name and birth location, mother's maiden name and birth location, level of education, race, usual occupation, social security number, informant & their relationship & address, cause of death and contributing factors, if death caused by injury- date of injury, was autopsy performed, method of disposition, location of disposition (cemetery & town), name of funeral home.

Oh yeah, some of you complain about family information being added to a memorial in the form of a photo because it makes a memorial look ugly, yet all the while, advertisements are bouncing all over the memorial selling anything from tee shirts to trucks.

I've dubbed some contributors as "Bertha Better Than You". They're the ones that make comments like "There should be a sister website called Find an Obituary" and ridicule those that create memorials using information found in obits. I recently read a contributor's bio stating that it was useless to add obituaries because nobody reads them anyway. Hummm
Bless her heart. She's as lost as an Easter egg.

This website is called Find a Grave, it's NOT called Find a Headstone. Just because Bertha Better Than You went to a cemetery and took headstone photos and another person found the grave via an obituary (which, by the way, both can contain wrong information), are equally important. BOTH contributors found a GRAVE and one is no less important than the other.

In some instances, maybe there was never a headstone, maybe it has deteriorated, maybe it's covered by dirt, maybe it was destroyed by storms or vandals or construction, maybe they were buried in a private location. Whatever the case, that person lived and died and belonged to a family but Bertha Better Than You thinks he/she doesn't deserve a memorial.

Not only can memorials be created by using a headstone photo or an obituary, they can also be created by other means like using death certificates, military records, published cemetery census books or family bibles. All of them (yes, even family bibles) are capable of having incorrect information. When a discrepancy arises as to the spelling of a name or birth or death dates, most often, it's the headstone that's proven to be wrong.

"IF YOU SEND ME A CORRECTION FOR ONE OF MY MEMORIALS, AND I HAVE NO WAY TO CONTACT YOU, YOUR CORRECTIONS WILL NOT BE MADE." When an active contributor sends an edit, they can easily be contacted even if messages are closed and no email address is listed. It's really not that difficult if that person has added at least one memorial. Well, that is, unless you're as dumb as cardboard. Those that don't consider themselves to be in the cardboard category, they're either too stubborn or just plain ol' lazy.

I don't pretend to say that headstone photos aren't appreciated. I've added my fair share. HOWEVER, while looking on Find A Grave for relatives, I'd much rather come upon a memorial with an obituary containing family information with no headstone photo than a memorial which "only" has a photo of a headstone.

Another little tidbit (Partially Plagiarized) - DON'T ARGUE WITH DONKEYS also known as Mr. and Mrs. Persnickety.
"The worst waste of time is arguing with the fool and fanatic who does not care about truth or reality, but only the victory of his beliefs and illusions. Never waste time on arguments that don't make sense.
Mr. and Mrs. Persnickety are people who, no matter how much evidence we present to them, are not in the capacity to understand, or are blinded by ego, hatred and resentment, and all they want is to be right even if they are not.
When ignorance screams, intelligence is silent. Your peace and quiet are worth more."

YES, in my opinion Find a Grave is a genealogical internet search tool and has evolved from it's inception into many Family Trees rather than only a repository for graves. Otherwise, why would it be linked to ancestry.com and newspapers.com? I suspect there are few people that visit this website with the sole purpose of looking at a particular photo of a headstone and where a person was buried then immediately jump over to another website to read about something entirely different like the recipe for Banana Pudding. Whether accidently or on purpose, I'd be willing to bet my last doughnut that people venturing onto Find a Grave eventually end up looking for parents, grandparents, cousins, etc. Some say that Find A Grave is not a family tree but I disagree. Find a Grave shows "genealogical relationships". That's the definition of a "family tree". LOL

It's a rare occasion that I decline an edit. Generally it's because of something weird like an 80 year old woman still giving birth to children. In the past, I've also been guilty of declining an edit to add military ranks to memorials such as adding PVT to a 90 year old who spent a brief time in the military for no other reason than I think it just looks down right silly. I no longer decline those military rank edits. I figure I won't always maintain the memorial and someone down the line will add it anyway. Yep, I still think it looks silly but does it hurt me? Nope.

In defense, I have absolutely nothing against the military as someone recently accused me. Actually I have a very strong connection. I've lost military husbands ... a Marine Captain killed by a grenade and an Army Lieutenant Colonel and my last husband that was a Marine Private. My affiliation with the military includes MCAGCC - Twenty Nine Palms, CA, Redstone Arsenal - Huntsville, AL, NOS/NSWC IHD - Indian Head, MD, NAS - Pensacola, FL, Washington DC, Eglin AFB - FL, Parris Island - SC, West Point , NY, and also Arlington - VA and Barrancas - Pensacola, FL cemeteries. I've also served as President of an Officers' Wives' Club.

And one more thing - I feel it necessary to explain why I have in my care so many more memorials than I've created. While searching through newspapers, census, etc., I come across a tremendous amount of edits that I'm able to make. So many of the memorials where I submit edits have been abandoned therefore I opt to maintain the memorial.

When you're not even related to a person whose memorial you maintain and you know nothing about their family - To pretty much sum up my thoughts regarding accepting edits - If it's not your circus and not your monkey ...

My email address is [email protected]

.

31 Mar 2023

The person who has nothing to boast of but their illustrious ancestors is like a potato plant -- the only good belonging to them is under the ground.
*****
If you'd like to contact me about a person of interest, please do so by using the "Suggest other corrections" field on their particular memorial. My additional contact information can be found below.
*****
Back in the '50's, my dad began researching our ancestry and worked on this project for over 70 years, up until his death . I started helping him in the '60's.

Perhaps you're looking at this page to see if you might be related to me.

You can check out some of my relatives by looking through the family links on my parent's memorials.

My Mom's memorial.

My Dad's memorial.

I finally got around to taking a DNA test using ANCESTRY in December 2019. Sure wish I hadn't waited so long. The number of results showing DNA matches is immense.

Even after all these years, it looks as if I have an enormous search ahead to locate my ancestors!

Starting with my two parents, I have to find
4 grandparents
8 great grandparents
16 second great grandparents
32 third great grandparents
64 fourth great grandparents
128 fifth great grandparents
256 sixth great grandparents
512 seventh great grandparents
1024 eight great grandparents
2048 ninth great grandparents
4096 tenth great grandparents

I've read on some profile pages where that person has "completed" the search on their side and are now researching their spouse's. Some of them even accomplished that in less than 5 years of research. I'm impressed.

If you are a member of ancestry.com and have not taken the Ancestry DNA test, you're missing out on the experience of using an extraordinary research tool.

I subscribed to newspapers.com in 2017 as a stand alone subscription rather than joining through ancestry.com. It's cost is about $10.00 per month. I think it's a great bang for your bucks.
*****
This may have existed for a while but I only noticed it today, 10 March 2022, that Find A grave has changed their transfer "guidelines".

Memorial transfer "requirements" are no longer limited to direct ancestors or direct descendants.
On this day - 10 Mar 2022 - Find A Grave gives this explanation as to memorial transfers.

"If the memorial in question is a relative to you (within our transfer guidelines) and the memorial manager is not family, then they must transfer the memorial. If they refuse to transfer the memorial or do not respond within a reasonable amount of time, contact [email protected] and we will work on it for you. Our transfer guidelines include these close relationships: child, spouse/PARTNER, sibling, parent, grandchild, great-grandchild, grandparent, great-grandparent, NIECE/NEPHEW, GREAT-NIECE/NEPHEW, AUNT/UNCLE, GREAT-AUNT/UNCLE, or FIRST COUSIN. This would include ADOPTIVE, STEP and IN-LAW versions of these relationships."
*****
23 Jun 2021

Well, today I'm wound up tighter than a rubber band on the propeller of a balsa wood airplane!

It seems that many "contributors" are guilty of holding the memorials hostage that they've created and are not cooperating with other contributors. They didn't even know or are not related to the person whose memorial they maintain. Were they related, they would put forth more effort to have correct information entered.

Just because a headstone/tombstone has S. B. White engraved on it rather than Samuel Bradley White, it doesn't mean S.B. was Mr. White's nickname. Prices of headstones, other than size and embellishments, are based on the number of characters that are to be engraved. Perhaps the person obtaining the headstone either didn't want to or couldn't afford to add any more information. Many headstones only include the birth and death year rather than day, month and year because all those additional numbers also increase the cost.

The same goes for his wife, Marlie Louise BLACK White. She happened to like Louise better therefore that's what she went by. Her headstone might say Louise B. White. That doesn't mean she didn't have a first name or that B. was her middle initial. It was just less expensive to add fewer names. You argue that Marlie doesn't appear on the headstone so you refuse to add it. But her maiden name of Black isn't written on the headstone either and yet you include it in the maiden name field. You just pick 'n choose what you feel like adding claiming "it might cause duplicates". That's a poor excuse. These days, duplicates are easy enough to merge. Another thing I often see … The headstone might say Marlie "Louise" B. White. That does not mean Louise was her nickname, it's just what she went by.

Mr. and Mrs. Peter Perfect boast that they "REFUSE TO LINK TO UNKNOWN LOCATION BURIALS. "
Find a Grave DOES ALLOW Unknown burials to be added. No place have I found where Find a Grave says DO NOT LINK TO THEM. Just who do you think you're helping … Find a Grave? If Find a Grave didn't want you to link family members to them, why are Unknown burials even allowed in the first place? You certainly aren't helping anyone. Does it just make you feel better or more powerful? Besides if you add the link, it might give someone a clue as to where they might look for the burial location.

I've also had edits declined by Mr. and Mrs. Peter Perfect for those that were cremated because I didn't know the location of the cremains. There are literally unlimited means for their disposition. I know one lady that carries her husband's ashes around in the trunk of her car so he goes to the grocery store, WalMart and he has even been to Disney World a couple of times. Ashes can be buried, placed in a columbarium, made into jewelry and given to relatives and friends, they can be mixed with ink to be tatoos, they can be loaded into shotgun shells and given to hunting buddies. And, I suppose, if the person was not well thought of by the responsible party taking charge of the cremains, they could have been flushed. Whatever the means of the disposition, maybe, just maybe, it's none of your business or mine.

As yet, I haven't had an edit declined when a person's body was donated to science but it wouldn't surprise me. I'm guessing those negative contributors think a donated body is forever a science project but that's not what happens. Remains may be distributed to assorted states, and after their usefulness, cremains or remains may be buried in marked graves, unmarked mass graves or sent back home to family.

Another annoying claim: "DON'T ADD DEATH CERTIFICATES on memorials that I maintain. They may cause embarrassment and aren't helpful anyway." So what's embarrassing? How they died? Death certificates are important for Genealogists. If you don't think so, then you're not one.

Yes, sometimes some of the information on a death certificate is wrong because the informant was not entirely "informed" and was making SWAG's. Aside from cause of death, these certificates offer a wealth of information to include some or all of the following:
Name, sex, birth date, birth location, death date, death location, hospital name, residence at time of death, marital status, surviving spouse's name, whether they served in military, father's name and birth location, mother's maiden name and birth location, level of education, race, usual occupation, social security number, informant & their relationship & address, cause of death and contributing factors, if death caused by injury- date of injury, was autopsy performed, method of disposition, location of disposition (cemetery & town), name of funeral home.

Oh yeah, some of you complain about family information being added to a memorial in the form of a photo because it makes a memorial look ugly, yet all the while, advertisements are bouncing all over the memorial selling anything from tee shirts to trucks.

I've dubbed some contributors as "Bertha Better Than You". They're the ones that make comments like "There should be a sister website called Find an Obituary" and ridicule those that create memorials using information found in obits. I recently read a contributor's bio stating that it was useless to add obituaries because nobody reads them anyway. Hummm
Bless her heart. She's as lost as an Easter egg.

This website is called Find a Grave, it's NOT called Find a Headstone. Just because Bertha Better Than You went to a cemetery and took headstone photos and another person found the grave via an obituary (which, by the way, both can contain wrong information), are equally important. BOTH contributors found a GRAVE and one is no less important than the other.

In some instances, maybe there was never a headstone, maybe it has deteriorated, maybe it's covered by dirt, maybe it was destroyed by storms or vandals or construction, maybe they were buried in a private location. Whatever the case, that person lived and died and belonged to a family but Bertha Better Than You thinks he/she doesn't deserve a memorial.

Not only can memorials be created by using a headstone photo or an obituary, they can also be created by other means like using death certificates, military records, published cemetery census books or family bibles. All of them (yes, even family bibles) are capable of having incorrect information. When a discrepancy arises as to the spelling of a name or birth or death dates, most often, it's the headstone that's proven to be wrong.

"IF YOU SEND ME A CORRECTION FOR ONE OF MY MEMORIALS, AND I HAVE NO WAY TO CONTACT YOU, YOUR CORRECTIONS WILL NOT BE MADE." When an active contributor sends an edit, they can easily be contacted even if messages are closed and no email address is listed. It's really not that difficult if that person has added at least one memorial. Well, that is, unless you're as dumb as cardboard. Those that don't consider themselves to be in the cardboard category, they're either too stubborn or just plain ol' lazy.

I don't pretend to say that headstone photos aren't appreciated. I've added my fair share. HOWEVER, while looking on Find A Grave for relatives, I'd much rather come upon a memorial with an obituary containing family information with no headstone photo than a memorial which "only" has a photo of a headstone.

Another little tidbit (Partially Plagiarized) - DON'T ARGUE WITH DONKEYS also known as Mr. and Mrs. Persnickety.
"The worst waste of time is arguing with the fool and fanatic who does not care about truth or reality, but only the victory of his beliefs and illusions. Never waste time on arguments that don't make sense.
Mr. and Mrs. Persnickety are people who, no matter how much evidence we present to them, are not in the capacity to understand, or are blinded by ego, hatred and resentment, and all they want is to be right even if they are not.
When ignorance screams, intelligence is silent. Your peace and quiet are worth more."

YES, in my opinion Find a Grave is a genealogical internet search tool and has evolved from it's inception into many Family Trees rather than only a repository for graves. Otherwise, why would it be linked to ancestry.com and newspapers.com? I suspect there are few people that visit this website with the sole purpose of looking at a particular photo of a headstone and where a person was buried then immediately jump over to another website to read about something entirely different like the recipe for Banana Pudding. Whether accidently or on purpose, I'd be willing to bet my last doughnut that people venturing onto Find a Grave eventually end up looking for parents, grandparents, cousins, etc. Some say that Find A Grave is not a family tree but I disagree. Find a Grave shows "genealogical relationships". That's the definition of a "family tree". LOL

It's a rare occasion that I decline an edit. Generally it's because of something weird like an 80 year old woman still giving birth to children. In the past, I've also been guilty of declining an edit to add military ranks to memorials such as adding PVT to a 90 year old who spent a brief time in the military for no other reason than I think it just looks down right silly. I no longer decline those military rank edits. I figure I won't always maintain the memorial and someone down the line will add it anyway. Yep, I still think it looks silly but does it hurt me? Nope.

In defense, I have absolutely nothing against the military as someone recently accused me. Actually I have a very strong connection. I've lost military husbands ... a Marine Captain killed by a grenade and an Army Lieutenant Colonel and my last husband that was a Marine Private. My affiliation with the military includes MCAGCC - Twenty Nine Palms, CA, Redstone Arsenal - Huntsville, AL, NOS/NSWC IHD - Indian Head, MD, NAS - Pensacola, FL, Washington DC, Eglin AFB - FL, Parris Island - SC, West Point , NY, and also Arlington - VA and Barrancas - Pensacola, FL cemeteries. I've also served as President of an Officers' Wives' Club.

And one more thing - I feel it necessary to explain why I have in my care so many more memorials than I've created. While searching through newspapers, census, etc., I come across a tremendous amount of edits that I'm able to make. So many of the memorials where I submit edits have been abandoned therefore I opt to maintain the memorial.

When you're not even related to a person whose memorial you maintain and you know nothing about their family - To pretty much sum up my thoughts regarding accepting edits - If it's not your circus and not your monkey ...

My email address is [email protected]

.