Find A Grave biographies

[Tickettyboo]

Sometimes, even when its 'writ in stone' its not correct :-)
I recently added a gravestone to F-A-G. Seven names on the stone and I added a bio for each of them.
I researched it to the best of my ability but the details for one of the names just didn't add up.
The stone inscription is very clear and says she died 1st March 1888, aged 4.
The graves register for the cemetery shows she was buried on 17th March - which seemed like a long time between death and burial back then.
I don't have access to the burials registers and it was niggling at me so I sent for her death entry (pdf) to see if that would point to the error being on the stone or in the burial register.

It was the stone that was wrong,  The stone was likely erected many years later after the child's parents died and the family also remembered her on it, it was probably an innocent error on the part of whoever ordered the stone.
I have added a note to the bio for the child as, for a while, the info I posted was incorrect.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/260280808/ursuline-bingham-fletcher

BUT as ever, no matter where we get info, its up to us to check it out to our own satisfaction. I've had breakthroughs from incorrect info before, checked it out and found that it was 'close but not quite right' but still value the original info as a pointer to be able to check it.

Boo

[coombs]

One of my ancestors was said to have died 11th March 1844, as written on her headstone, but her death cert says she died 12th March. The headstone writing clearly says 11th.

[Sandrafamilytree]

A lady in my family's tree has a Find a Grave entry showing a photo of a grave vase. The dates on the vase state simply '1884-1974.'

The death registration gives a birth date of 24 June 1884; however, the birth was registered in 1883 and the 1939 Register includes a birth date of 24 June 1883.

Looks like the vase is wrong. I plan to create a Find a Grave note to alert people looking into this family, but of course I would expect anyone reading it to want to check this out for themselves.

Find a Grave biographies can provide clues, and hopefully the creators of them take as much care as they possibly can.

For instance, I steer very well clear of mentioning children, as I have learned from experience that there are so often more children to be found!

[Andrew Tarr]

One of my ancestors was said to have died 11th March 1844, as written on her headstone, but her death cert says she died 12th March. The headstone writing clearly says 11th.

To a scientist that is almost within experimental error ....  .  Perhaps the person died late on the day but the death was recorded after midnight - or something like that ?

[Blue70]

I'm sure there's a lot of good contributors to Find A Grave but I had a bad experience with them when Ancestry hints alerted me to information that had been taken from one of my websites and used to not only say where and when they were buried but to build biographies. Some information is family folklore and can be quite sensitive and is not what you want to see on a grave site. Some information evolves over time and the grave site remains stuck in time while original research has moved on. Some contributors just want to hoover up other people's information and are careless when it comes to accuracy and etiquette.


C

[Andrew Tarr]

Some information evolves over time and the grave site remains stuck in time while original research has moved on.

I would say Most information 'evolves', and whether it is on a website or on hardcopy, there is little one can do about it except grumble or 'evolve' it a bit further.  Genealogy may not be a science, but if it was, genealogists would be glad to help improve accuracy.  Unfortunately, as we all know, that is not always what happens.

[Sandrafamilytree]

I'm sure there's a lot of good contributors to Find A Grave but I had a bad experience with them when Ancestry hints alerted me to information that had been taken from one of my websites and used to not only say where and when they were buried but to build biographies. Some information is family folklore and can be quite sensitive and is not what you want to see on a grave site. Some information evolves over time and the grave site remains stuck in time while original research has moved on. Some contributors just want to hoover up other people's information and are careless when it comes to accuracy and etiquette.


C

Just wondering - after your bad experience - did you contact the Find a Grave contributor and ask them to remove the sensitive information? Hopefully they did?

[Blue70]

I'm sure there's a lot of good contributors to Find A Grave but I had a bad experience with them when Ancestry hints alerted me to information that had been taken from one of my websites and used to not only say where and when they were buried but to build biographies. Some information is family folklore and can be quite sensitive and is not what you want to see on a grave site. Some information evolves over time and the grave site remains stuck in time while original research has moved on. Some contributors just want to hoover up other people's information and are careless when it comes to accuracy and etiquette.


C

Just wondering - after your bad experience - did you contact the Find a Grave contributor and ask them to remove the sensitive information? Hopefully they did?

They denied copying it. It was a very frustrating experience. I remember telling them all the mistakes they made copying the information I was trying to get them to correct them. I washed my hands of it all in the end and put it down to experience. I'm more careful now about posting burial details. It also put me off research in general to an extent because there are horrible people out there that can steal your stuff and do things with it and it's too much bother.

I've just had a look and it looks like some things have been changed since I last looked but there's a very obvious mistake of a relative who emigrated to Australia being on Find A Grave as buried in England. I'm not going to look further it's not worth the work now. I see that the contributor has now died perhaps their lack of manners was down to their age or health issues or maybe they just got too big for their boots with their access to information. 


C

[Sandrafamilytree]

I'm sure there's a lot of good contributors to Find A Grave but I had a bad experience with them when Ancestry hints alerted me to information that had been taken from one of my websites and used to not only say where and when they were buried but to build biographies. Some information is family folklore and can be quite sensitive and is not what you want to see on a grave site. Some information evolves over time and the grave site remains stuck in time while original research has moved on. Some contributors just want to hoover up other people's information and are careless when it comes to accuracy and etiquette.


C

Just wondering - after your bad experience - did you contact the Find a Grave contributor and ask them to remove the sensitive information? Hopefully they did?

They denied copying it. It was a very frustrating experience. I remember telling them all the mistakes they made copying the information I was trying to get them to correct them. I washed my hands of it all in the end and put it down to experience. I'm more careful now about posting burial details. It also put me off research in general to an extent because there are horrible people out there that can steal your stuff and do things with it and it's too much bother.


C

That's a shame to hear.

I wouldn't have copied information in that way in the first place, but if someone contacted me and pointed out potential errors in my research, I'd like to think I would have the common sense and good grace to listen and make appropriate corrections.

I suppose it's possible that the Find a Grave support team would have been willing to help, especially if any sensitive information needed to be removed.