Find a Grave

Edit Updates

As you probably know, we’ve been working for a while to update the Find a Grave edit system. We’ve just released an update to the site that brings the latest changes to all memorials on the site and updates pages where you process edits that have been suggested to memorials you manage.

A lot of the important work for these updates is behind the scenes to modernize the code, but it has allowed us to make some nice updates to the process now and will make it easier for us to improve the edit process in the future.

Some improvements you may notice with this change include:

• The ability to suggest edits for all fields, including Bios and Burial Details.

• The option to add a note explaining and providing support for the edits you are suggesting.

• A way to mark the memorial of a veteran.

• An option for members to mark (or suggest that a memorial page be marked) as a Cenotaph or Monument (formerly Memorial Site) without contacting support. To see these options, click “Additional grave marker options” just below Gravesite Details.

• A cancel option on the Suggest Edits page, so that if you change your mind or make a mistake, you can easily cancel a suggestion you have made there before the manager processes it.

• An edit in one field will no longer lock related fields. (Notice the name fields in the image above)

These updates will make it easier to suggest edits, but we know there will still be reasons to contact a manager, so we’ve added a “Contact manager” option that lets you send them a message.

We’ve also made important updates to the Suggested Edits page where you process edits suggested for memorial pages you manage. These changes support the new edit options, simplify the processing of edits and include:

• Options to accept or decline individual parts of a suggested edit.

• A comparison tool for reviewing edits suggested for long text fields like the bio and inscription.  This tool includes some different viewing options to help you evaluate the changes and color choices for people with different viewing abilities. You can also edit longer text suggestions in this tool before accepting it by clicking the “Modify” button.

• A quick view of the main grave photo to help you review suggestions. You’ll find the preview by clicking the thumbnail image on the left of the suggested edit.

• Improved search, grouping and sorting options for edits.

You can learn more about suggesting edits from these articles on our support site:

This has been a big project and we really appreciate the help of everyone who has given us feedback, helped with testing new ideas or pitched in in any way. We hope you’ll find these updates helpful. If you have feedback or suggestions, please leave a comment on this page.

880 comments

  1. How do I transfer a memorial from a deceased memorial manager to me. I would like to mark my father, memorial 35760658 as a veteran.

    • Hi Janne, you can send a suggested edit to mark his memorial as veteran through Suggest Edits on his memorial. You can also request to manage the memorial by clicking on Suggest Edits and scrolling down to Contact manager. Click on that button and you can ask for a transfer in that form. If the manager is deceased but has not been marked as a fallen graver on Find a Grave, you can follow the instructions here. Once a manager is marked as a fallen graver, you can easily “request to manage” from the Suggest Edits page on the memorial. https://support.findagrave.com/s/article/Community-and-Contacting-Members#howdoIreport

    • On my Suggestions I’ve Sent tab, I have it marked to list suggestions in order of Accepted and Date Processed (newest). The first page shows the ones that just got processed for May but page 2 skips to 2020 even though I had suggestions that were processed in 2021, 2022, and the rest of 2033

    • I have the edits but it won’t let me do anything with them so what do I do now I don’t understand this

    • Any way to select all the edits for approval or decline like in the old system? The new design is slightly confusing to me.

      • Hi Casey, in the suggested edits system there is a Select All in the upper right above the decline/approve column. This will allow you to suggest all on the page and process them.

  2. Did read all the posts here, too many. My suggestion. On the edit summary page, it is nice that all the edits for a single memorial are now grouped together. However there is no Select All or Accept All for just that memorial. Looks like you can only Select/Accept All for the entire list of edits for all memorials. You can of course instead go to the memorial in question, click the edit button and in there accept them all, but it would be nice to be able to do it from the pending edit page without having to go into the memorial. So something like a “Select All Edits for [memorial name]” so it is clear you are selecting all but only for that one memorial.

    • Hi Patrick, thanks for this suggestion and your feedback. We’ll be looking at this and other suggestions over the coming couple of weeks.

      • We are all volunteers who work on these entries in our spare time. The only way to approve all is to go to each individual memorial page, which is the most ignorant and time-consuming feature to date.

        I have a family, which includes two people with limited mobility, I am in school and have a host of other things in my life outside of here demanding my attention.

        The additional note and cenotaph request portion are great everything else is garbage, it’s unnecessary and redundant.

        I already spend entirely too much time worrying obsessing and worrying some more about find A Grave.

        It’s just my humble opinion but y’all are taking this site back to the days before Jim Tipton.

        Already a target of overbearing contributors, those editions have only opened the door to more abusive unwarranted unnecessary redundant edits.

        I am not going to spend the remainder of my life worrying about edits I will just let those go to auto accept and if they’re wrong they’re wrong.

        Support has put an unnecessary burden and yoke on those of us who helped make this site great with a lot of entries.

  3. The email notifications I’ve been receiving today no longer distinguish between edit suggestions which were affirmatively approved and edit suggestions which were auto-approved. Is that an intentional change or a bug? I find it helpful to be able to quickly look at the notification and know which managers are active or not active in reviewing edits

    • Hi Peter, thanks for writing in with this question. For now these notifications will be only about the suggested edit being processed and not whether or not it was automatically processed or processed by the manager.

  4. If I make one suggestion on a memorial, I then select save suggestions. But I’m not done. I’m directed to Add Notes. Then I have to select Save Suggestions, whether I add a note or not. That all plays out every time I leave one suggestion. Slows the flow way down. Sometimes I can’t even add and save one suggestion. I have to back out and start over. Help.

    • Same with me. I try to contribute by editing bios or making changes that are inaccurate. I am somewhat of a historian on the side, like a hobby, and it is frustrating me how many memorials have false information in the database. I try to make changes and it never saves the suggestions I made or sends them. I have given up at this point thinking its a bug.

  5. I really appreciate all the changes except one. Allowing just anyone to add to the bio section could really mess up a lot of research I’ve done. I am worried about the quality/correctness of information that could be inserted. Many managers research updates before adding. Is there anyway to reverse this change or protect the old bio section from the additions? Thank you so much.

    • Thanks for writing in, we’re excited about all the fields being editable now. We’ve added some new review methods when edits are processed for longer text fields. You can quickly compare the previous biography with the new biography and accept or decline according to your research or the research sent to you. A member can send a note with their updates so they can provide more information about it too.

      • It is great to be able to edit the bio field, and if I’m reading this correctly, it will be autoaccepted in 21 days if a manager doesn’t review it. This will address all the people who refuse to acknowledge additions to the bio section.

        It is really nice that managers can see columns and compare the existing bio with the suggested changes. The example provided above shows obvious differences. However, I have come across multiple instances where there are several paragraphs, and determining where a few dates or name change suggestions have been made might prove difficult. If multiple changes have been suggested, the manager might miss them. Is there a way to tweak this update further so that it is more like the Track Changes feature in Word that shows suggested changes in a different color?

    • The problem is with the MANY users who do no research. They copy and paste something, assuming it”s 100% correct. Prior to this, the only option was “”Suggest other corrections,” and they could simply ignore those messages as many did.

    • Their reply translates into no we’re not changing anything get with the program and you’re our slave.
      They’re following the model of Walmart another large box stores trying to alleviate some of the work they have to do.

    • I totally agree with you. Many People just add Obits with name and town where people live. Grandchildren’s names and where people can send donations. I edit all that stuff out. It’s good they don’t have to send seperate email, but if we don’t responsd… it should loop or not be processed.

  6. This so called update to the review of suggested edits is anything but. Updates are supposed to make the process more efficient. I’m wasting time in this new process. We’re volunteers not unpaid employees. There are too many bells and whistles installed just to give some programmer a bragging bullet for their resumé. The previous process was more time efficient for the review process. I actively manage tens of thousands of memorials and it is cumbersome just to approve suggested edits in the current process. I’m more inclined to just ignore suggested edits and let the automatic approval take over. This diminishes my role as a manager and invites the potential for inaccurate data to be introduced. I know changes can take some time to get used to, but you guys really blew it on this one.

    • Hi Antonio, thanks for your feedback. Can you provide some specific examples as to what is not working for you compared to the system prior? We’d love to learn more about this so we can help.

    • Clicking on the changes you are not disputing actually saves time because you can get them out of the way while you focus on the ones in question. Ignoring suggested edits is a violation of the guidelines. If you feel that a few extra clicks to approve suggested edits requires too much time, you should turn some over to others to manage.

      • Well said, Annie. Far too many of the memorial “collectors” let edits sit for 21 days to auto-approve and, prior to this latest update, just outright ignored any “Suggest other corrections.”

      • Ignoring suggested edits is not a violation of the guidelines, if that was the case and they wouldn’t have made the auto accept how ignorant.

    • With all due respect, perhaps the problem is that you manage tens of thousands of memorials…

      I don’t intend for this to come across as rude though I understand it might. As someone who manages under 100 & would like more of my family’s memorials that many users like you refuse to transfer, rather than managing such a large number, perhaps you could let others help with that.

      My feedback for findagrave is to make it much easier for family members to be able to get memorials transferred than it is. People use false tags as relatives & they don’t make timely updates.

    • Antonio, I want to thank you for wording exactly how I feel.

      With 42,000 memorials I am not inclined to spend every minute of my free time on this website which I spend way too much time obsessing over edits and other nonsense that doesn’t need to be a part of my life.

      I don’t think I will continue being a contributor. I think from this point on I’m just going to let my edits go to auto accept, sign on occasionally and move on from findagrave grave.

      They have put an unnecessary yoke and burden on the volunteers who make this website successful.

  7. LOVE LOVE LOVE! Appreciate your hard work. I read where people hate the extra “notes” section when it asks you. Just push Save Suggestions twice quickly if you know you won’t add any notes. Becomes second nature. Just getting used to the changes. It is difficult for some people to accept but not that difficult to accept edits much as you did in the past if you don’t really want to look at the comparison. (I remember the crying from the BIG UPDATE years ago and I was probably one of them — but it all becomes easier as you get used to it!)

    One thing I could not find was the “Cenotaph” indicator. It said it was under “Other Options” – not sure where that is? I thought maybe only if I managed the memorial which is fine but still could not find it even when I edited my own memorials …

    • Thanks for your comment. You’ll find the Cenotaph and Monument options by clicking the “Additional grave marker options” just below Gravesite details. We’ve updated the post to make that clearer. Sorry for the confusion.

  8. I would like to know where the ‘edit by date suggested’ option has gone as I do my updates in order (i could be missing seeing it of course !) I also spend a lot of hours writing and researching biographies for the memorials I manage. I get lots of errors sent to me. I now rarely send biographies or updates to other people as a lot of managers do not even bother to action them and I then eventually after 6 months or a year send them to you to action !. My first impression is that it all this looks a lot more complicated, time consuming and unnecessary. If something isn’t broke why change it.

    • Hi Carol, now that all the fields are editable those edits for biographies will be automatically processed after 21 days if the manager doesn’t decline the update. Thanks for your understanding as we work through some bugs over the coming week or two. We will be adding the date range feature back as well.

  9. Hi Find A Grave
    Wow what an update! I have cleared some of my edits and have found it to be quicker and easier to process them. I have also started sending out a few edits and this process is also greatly improved. I think the ability to edit every field is a bold move and a fantastic step forward. I can see a lot of objections in the comments to this but once people get used to it, it will become second nature. Great job in my opinion and well worth the wait.

  10. When I go to suggest an edit, enter a name of a relative, I used to hit the Enter key, and it would submit the edit form. Instead it always jumps to the Notes section, asking me if I want to leave a note. It didn’t used to do this, and adds an extra step, that slows me down. Can you fix this please? thanks very much!

      • And as someone else mentioned, if you do click the Save Suggestions button displayed at the bottom of the window, it still prompts you to add a Note!

      • I agree, the extra step is a bit annoying. Could a note section just be added at the top, so everyone sees it immediately and it doesn’t bounce around when clicking save?

        Otherwise I like the new setup overall. Although I wish you could have the choice to accept all edits for a specific person without having to go to their memorial.

      • Correction. It doesn’t go to the Notes section, it simply jumps down to the submit button. But filling a field and hitting Enter, used to submit the form.

  11. I like the new look of the suggested edits, very clean and easier to see all suggested changes on a memorial, but it did not let me individually accept or reject suggested request. I had several and was going to hit accept all when there was one I disagreed with and wanted to double check my records. So I clicked on the accept in a different individual and ALL were accepted! Not cool! Now I can’t see suggestions anymore which I could have either offered them correct information or corrected my own tree. This needs to be fixed and we should be allowed to accept and reject individual suggestions. It’s too easy for people to make changes. I never get emails when a suggestion is sent so who knows how many I’ve potentially missed. I understand the system automatically accepts them after a time for inactive users, but then a record log should be kept so it can be viewed and double checked later and anything reversed. Bad information is hard to scrub from the internet and sometimes, even when it’s written in stone, mistakes can be made.

  12. Thank you for all your hard work on this update. So far, I like it very much 🙂

  13. Could you direct me to a place where I can make a suggestion about merging cemetery sites. There is one location I have physically visited seems to have three different names ( and none the actual posted name ) and sites. Any suggestions?

  15. Nice work! Thanks for listening to all of us who have put many hour into managing memorials. Would you consider changing ‘nickname’ to ‘known as” and allowing the middle name to be in that place? Kinda silly that it used to be allowed (hence, there are memorials wither the middle name appears in nickname, but if you try to make other edits, the system refuses unless you remove) when so many 2nd and 3rd generation names have made their distinction in the family by being known by their middle name.
    Thanks for your consideration AND your hard work on this project!!

    • I agree. So many people are known by their middle name. I feel that I have to “trick” the system in order for this to display properly. For instance, put John Richard in the first name field and Richard in the nickname field.

  16. A couple of thoughts on ‘Accumulator’ contributors.

    I see a situation where a cemetery administrator uses FG to provide a directory of the ‘residents’ in their cemetery and would like to prevent some of the information in their memorials from being changed. This would be useful for small cemeteries that do not have a self-serve directory and for veteran cemeteries. Perhaps FG could create a special type of contributor, ‘Administrator’ instead of ‘Manager’. The owner of the cemetery would designate the name of the ‘Administrator’. FG could designate selected fields of memorials controlled by an ‘Administrator’ as not auto changeable. These fields should include names, birth and death dates and physical location in the list. This would prevent unauthorized changes to the information needed to locate a grave.

    There are some managers that accumulate memorials without any intention of actively maintaining them. These managers should be encouraged to transfer the memorials when someone who wants to actively maintain a memorial. This would reduce the amount of work that they need to do. Perhaps they could have a count field of transferred memorials that would give them credit for being a good FG contributor.

    Along the same idea of giving credit for being a good FG contributor, how about a count of contributed Links.

    • Harry,

      The easiest solution to the collectors who do nothing but collect is to make the “stats” private. If they’re the only ones who can see their tens of thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of memorials managed, I suspect they’ll leave Find A Grave. In turn, those memorials would then be available for people who do care about editing/updating them.

      • Pretty bold of you to assume that they’re collectors, you know this for a fact? You know that they’re doing that for a fact? If not maybe you shouldn’t judge

        I myself have a pretty hefty amount of memorials but it came from hard work. Walking, photographing until my legs and calves are like steel. Until I can barely walk some days.

        I have news for you I am one of the collectors who made this website successful.

        Because of my dedication 42,000 people can say they know where their family members are buried.

        This website was designed to be a final deposition website not ancestry family tree 2.0 the freeview version.

        I’d really like to see other contributors who refer to people such as myself as hoarders are collectors get a timeout. one week suspension would be great.. find great has never kept the amount of memorials a contributor could have. It hurts their bottom dollar they need you to add those pages to make money for them.

  17. I do like the ability to add notes to the bio that previously required the manager to copy/paste from a message I had sent to them. Seems there are a few more “clicks” to get the same amount of data added, but that seems the norm for “improvements”. I miss the ability to copy who/when the suggestion for change was requested all in one field.

  18. I am really not likely having to enter the info (Iie) plot location, hit save and the page drops to another “SAVE” and won’t budge until I hit it a second time. WHY?

    • We’re looking into this further. Thanks for your patience while we work on it.

  19. I love adding family to the deceased person’s memorial. Since I started I deliberately went looking for memorials that weren’t being cared for. i hate see someone being left behind.
    My main complaint other than people taking unfinished memorials and never doing anything with them,are the groups popping up of people who are trying to break the old rules about FG. They want you to write a small book about the deceased and when you reject their suggestions, they try to make you feel bad.
    I try to add parents, spouse(s), and children and I do the necessary work to add siblings when I can.
    FG used to want only this on the memorial unless they were famous or something of a great nature to the public and I like that rule,

    • Hi, Ruth. Thanks for your work on the site. Adding a biography or other details to the memorial enhances the memorial and tells us more about the person who lived. This honors their life and memory. We can do both, record the burial location and memorialize the individual by sharing more about their life and who they were.

  20. From your overview on “Sending Edits and Notes”
    ‘When suggesting edits it is optional to send a note…adding a short note about the suggested edit gives the manager readily available information when reviewing it… If your note applies to several edits, you can suggest all those edits at one time and add one note that will apply to all of them.’
    I often send information from various records found, with my suggested edits. But since the changes I have found that I am no longer able to list them all at one time. Is there now a limit on words for that space? I have found that it doesn’t allow me to continue typing and cuts me off. From the above information, I didn’t believe that would be a problem.

    Thank you for any help or insight you can give.

    • There is a character limit on the notes field. If you think your note will be more extensive you could send that edit separately with a note before sending other edits.

  21. I would like to see a rule enforced where the name on the stone rules, not the name they were given at birth. Too many people think the birth name overrules everything. You can’t find the birth name on the stone and the name on the stone is no longer indexed. Let’s honor the deceased with the name they liked best and used.

    • As this website is largely used for genealogy, this isn’t the best idea. You can always add ‘best known as ABC’ in the bio of a memorial. If you’re only going by a name on the stone, there will end up being memorials that are lost because the records may not be there.

      • What about those who have a wrong name on the stone? Example: stone says Magdalene. Family Bible has Margaret. Census starts has Margaret for first two, then Maggie for the rest. Marriage record has Maggie. No one left alive looking for her is going to be looking for Magdalene.

      • No, ajg, you don’t understand the problem. THOUSANDS of duplicates are posted because the name on the stone is not seen due to someone who has posted the birth name. I find duplicates every day which I send to FAG to be merged. I decline any edits which change the name on the stone to a different birth name! I post the birth name in the bio, which is the correct method for solving this genealogical problem.

      • 100% this … and, surprise!, the rules don’t say to automatically match the headstone/marker.

  22. I second the need to be able to Select All for just one memorial.

    I’m also concerned about biography changes being automatically accepted. This could wipe out much research done for the original bio and having it vanish without a trace.
    If you do auto-accept biographies please retain both the original version and the suggested version separated by a line. Include the date and source for the new version.
    I might perhaps have to review those memorials of mine for which I’ve spent hours composing biographies and post a jpg of them that I know can’t be changed.

    I deal with some FindAGrave managers who have hundreds of thousands of memorials under their care and who state in their profile that they don’t accept messages or read their emails. Any transfer requests that I’ve made to them have gone unheeded.
    Perhaps I can now make these requests through the new “Notes” option instead of the “Contact Manager” approach that I know will not get their attention?

  23. I would like to see lot numbers which appear on the posting to also appear on this list. On large cemeteries, especially one I frequent, I and others are actively adding them. Formerly we could see this on the edit. Now, it has been taken away. You have to go an extra step and click on the posting to see if the lot number is already on or is not. If it is not, for this large cemetery, I add it.

    • Hi Carl, you should be able to see the plot field on the memorial. Can you send in an example of where this is occurring, a memorial ID? Thanks for your help.

      • That is not my question. I know about the plot field on the memorial. When I look at the edit suggestion for Leon Blackford #76603042, for example, Laurel Hill Cemetery, Des Moines IA, the plot field does not appear on the edit. So I don’t know if this person has a plot listed without clicking on the name. It is easier to see the plot on the edit as additional information without going this extra step.

  24. A lot of the changes are very helpful, but I strongly share the concerns expressed by several people about making the bio section fully editable and subject to auto-approval after 21 days.

    I do like the fact that this change means you no longer have to go into your email and copy and paste suggested text.

    However, it’s one thing to be able to add information and another thing to be able to delete or change existing information.

    Also, all other fields are factual, whereas a bio is highly subjective. I fear this will definitely be abused and is likely to result in increased conflicts between members.

    I realize that a previous problem was that many managers simply ignored all bio suggestions. I guess we’ll see if this swings too far in the other direction.

    I would point out that more than half the people to whom I send factual edits simply let them go to auto-approval, so it is likely that a lot of information will now be added without anyone reviewing it.

    It is something you will need to keep a close eye on. At a minimum, there may need to be clearer guidance that information in the biographical section remains the manager’s discretion.

    • Agree with this 100%! This is actually rather frightening, especially when it comes to family memorials. I also find that some people cannot write and after working hard on certain bios, it really bothers me that people are able to change things to add irrelevant facts.

      • I don’t agree with this at all. The Bio is no different to any other field and should be able to be edited as such. What is the abuse you think is going to take place? Before if you ignored a suggested edit for the Bio FG would simply add it for the person via email and you would be none the wiser. This way you get 21 days to approve or refuse the edit instead of having it imposed by FG. What it means is you can no longer just ignore Bio edit requests which can only be a good thing. So I’m really not sure what you are afraid of? You are still the memorial manager and if anything you dislike in a bio does slip through the net you can always edit it again. Unlike the monument the bio is note written in stone.

      • Opening up the bio field will be beneficial in some cases, and very problematic in others.

        Most of the 25 or so bio suggestions I’ve submitted in the past have been ignored (some managers aren’t active, while others have hundreds of thousands of records and never respond to anything). So I understand the frustration people had with unresponsive managers. Now, I will be better able to add or fix info, most of which will be auto-approved.

        But what type of info am I adding? I like to think that I am pretty reasonable and judicious in what I add. In addition to brief, original bios, I might copy an interesting pre-1920 obit, but I’m not going to copy an article that goes into detail about a person’s murder, suicide or death in a horrific accident — I don’t think this is the appropriate forum. But other people consider that part of the factual record.

        Some people submit virtually any historical reference they find (i.e. here’s an entry I found from the 1860 census; here’s a news item I found about their Saturday night bowling league, they played on their high school ball team), so some records may become a jumble of trivial matters.

        One person in my area was adding photos of census records indicating that this person “might” be a descendant of a slave-holding family – now, she can add that info directly into their bio.

        Just look at some of the “Wikipedia wars” over trying to control the narrative. Do you identify someone as a successful businessman or a corporate polluter? Do you point out that someone cheated on their spouse or sexually harassed their
        employees or was a drunk-driver?

        These issues/problems already exist, but the potential grows significantly now that anyone can easily submit subjective biographical information (especially since a significant percentage is likely to go through the auto-approval process). Of course, other contributors can then go in and edit or delete such information, and FG can kick out people who are abusing the system (another guy in my area keeps getting kicked out but he then creates new accounts so that he can keep posting rants on people’s flowers).

        If you see a questionable/offensive bio, you won’t know who wrote it, but FG should have a record of who created the content.

        I’m not concerned about the memorials I manage, since I can control those.

        And I realize that most people will act responsibly, so hopefully the bio field changes will be positive overall, But there will be a small number of people who create problems.

        By the way, it’s my understanding that FG would only rarely “impose” a suggested edit that had been ignored, primarily in cases where there was a clear and significant error or derogatory information.

    • Information that shouldn’t be there in the first place should be editable. Far too many users have just ignored the messages through “Suggest other corrections” in the past.

      Far too many users refuse to acknowledge that Find A Grave’s guidelines don’t allow for the names of living relatives in bios unless directly approved by a family member (which is not the case the vast majority of the time).

      I have also come across a couple where they copied and pasted newspaper articles of how the individual died (even the murder of an 8-year-old child). That type of information is inappropriate. The creator ignored the “Suggest other corrections” so after 30 days I had to forward to Find A Grave for them to remove it.

    • I do understand the concern, but I don’t agree it is a problem to allow suggested edits to the Bio field. If a Manager is paying attention to the suggested edits, they can either decline the Bio suggestion, or modify the Bio suggestion. In the past, I’ve experienced 2 instances where the Bio gave incorrect parent’s names or incorrect spouse’s names, and the Manager either never saw the suggested corrections to the Bio, or simply ignored them. I had to go through the process of contacting Support to get these biographies corrected. These were for a 3rd great grandparent, and a 4th great grandparent, so the incorrect information affected many descendants, who (for better or worse) often rely on Find A Grave for genealogy information or clues. Will it require more work for the Manager? Yes. Will it result in better and more accurate Biographies? Yes, if the Manager has reviewed and either accepted, declined, or modified the suggested edits for the Bio. I’m glad that Find A Grave has made this change, and many other improvements.

  25. Is there a way to remove edit requests that I previously denied from the list that shows up on my drop down menu? Previously I would deny a request to place multiple married names for a woman in the Last Name section, as that was a previous FG policy before the search engine was changed. As I’m going through those that I previously denied and am now accepting their request and adding both married names I’d like to clean up my Denied list.

  26. Is it possible to make it easier to transfer family memorials?

    I am not talking about getting your 5x great uncle’s step niece… I am in my 30s, but I have older parents. My grandfather and many of my uncles were born in the 1800s (that’s not a typo). I want to manage the memorials, especially that of my uncle John, but the person who created it refuses to transfer it to me and it takes them a long time to make updates. It’s not a matter of whether or not it’s easy for the manager to do — many simply won’t. As we’re Greek & recent immigrants in the grand scheme of things, I know for certain the manager isn’t related as I know our entire extended family.

    I don’t know if this is something that’s doable, but it’s frustrating when managers can accept or decline things when they’re not your relation or even a family friend.

      • I am glad to hear there may be transfer “guideline” changes in the future. I do hope that consideration is given to expand those “rules” so that at least gg grandparents and aunts/uncles can be required transfers. Often, researchers like myself knew some of these ‘folk’ personally, no other family member is interested, yet the unrelated “collector” refuses to consider a transfer.

    • I am not sure why you feel the need to “own” all the generations of your family. Changes to the transfer system to allow individuals to manage parents and grandparents have already been made. The further back you go, the more likely it is that your GG Grandparents could be related to numerous FG members.
      Obsessing over memorial ownership is unhealthy. Perhaps you should consider using the Virtual Cemetery system to collect together all your relatives. I did this and now it doesn’t matter who manages my relatives as I have them all in one place and can access them easily when I need to. See link below for further information.
      https://support.findagrave.com/s/article/Virtual-Cemeteries

      • I believe there is another side to this “debate.” For one, to “own” all the generations is an exaggeration in most cases, yet so many of what I’d call ‘name baggers’ seem to believe they “own” memorials simply because they were the first to post them, even though is so many cases they never add links or add more than what is legible on the marker. I suppose that what is “unhealthy” may be in the eye of the beholder. Yes, some great great ancestor may be related to numerous other FAG members, but in my observation over time, most descendants are simply not that interested. If someone is equally or more closely related, I readily transfer the memorial. I manage just over 300 memorials, 99% of whom are relatives, but I’ve contributed links / dates / locates and sometimes obituaries to hundreds of memorials for more distant relatives. Hopefully, the changes introduced by Find A Grave will make it much easier to add information, especially in the numerous cases where managers simply refuse to respond.

  27. I absolutely hate this new edit process. There used to be a place to select all and it took me 5 seconds to accept edits and be done. Now, I have to click each edit.

    Please put back a select all button.

    • There is a Select All button at the top at the right above the checkbox column. Is it not displaying for you?

  28. I search for pending edits for a particular memorial ID. Once I see that list, I want to switch to accepted edits to see who gave me conflicting information. In the “old days”, the memorial ID selection would remain and I would see accepted edits fairly quickly. Now it seems it removes that selection information so it will display all approved edits. (For me, that is a very large number and I frequently time out).
    You should keep all selection criteria when switching among pending, accepted and declined edits…like you used to.

  29. In my accepted Suggestions I Sent Page, I have it sorted by recently processed. The first page shows all the ones processed in May but the second page jumps back to 2020 when I had suggestions processed in 2021, 2022, and the rest of 2023.

  30. For my accepted suggested edits I sent, I had it sorted by most recently processed. The first page shows all my processed edits in May but the second page skips to 2020 even though I have processed edits from 2021, 2022, and the rest of 2023. I would like to see them again.

  31. Hello, If I am researching and accepting suggestions from with my memorial (using edit), the edits for a spouse are misleading, as they do not show the year field. That is, if I look at the edit summary list, I can see someone is adding a marriage year (which I can then research), but inside the memorial, it just shows the spouse, so I can’t tell anything is being changed.

  32. I tend to search accepted and deleted edits at times
    with over 100,000 accepted edits in the files I tried to narrow down my looking to a specific cemetery
    Full system bulked-threw me out with error
    That date range criteria on all sections of edits is important especially when someone refers to a date or time period of a specific edit. Not bad for lower numbers, but a higher number it is an import tool
    especially now that requested edits have doubled (now abt 800) is just days, and as people learn this will be bad
    FYI if you add more fields to check then the drop down box needs to offer the limit of each field
    ex: Plot info- people like commas, for me the commas are a redundant element of “space capital letter”, and a visual overload or suggestions only give numbers without giving the clue of blk lot plot etc. that give those number meaning. This is simple update if I can concentrate on just that update
    I want to continue to lend integrity to the information that is added but People do things like suggest a couple gets divorced marry a person 4 states away, then divorce them and remarry and have Kids. I’m sure that if the person had access to the bio they would have changed that also wiping out previous confirmed info.

  33. Found an issue
    I have some people that I trust and just tried to limit the edit list by their user ID#
    It now adds the user name to the number in the search option and WILL NOT BRING UP ANY suggested edits by the contributor (also the search button in now gone, how do you initiate the search after changing the option info?)

    • This should be working properly. We will test it again. Please let us know if this is still occurring in a couple of days.

  34. Did you fix the notification that I have a new suggestion to look at?
    I have never received one. I always have to be logged into the site and look at my edits section.
    currently I have no edits to review.

  35. Found another issue?
    When nickname edit is submitted, it locks the maiden name field even though no edit was submitted to the maiden name field.

    • Can you send in a memorial ID where this is occurring? We have tried, but can’t replicate this issue.

  36. Photos

    Allow the manager of a memorial be able to fix the category on photos on that memorial, regardless of who added them.

    My logic is because manually fixing the order is not a permanent fix. If another photo is added by anyone at some point after the manual fix, then ALL the photos revert back to the default order based on the category..

    • AGREED. I have seen too many memorials show as not having a grave photo when they do. The user who posted the photo incorrectly marked it as “Person” or something other than “Grave” (and they had to do that intentionally because the default tag is “Grave”).

  37. I think edits for the bio section is a terrible idea. For instance, FG requests that obits not be posted, yet I receive many ‘Suggested edits’ to add published obits, which is a copyright violation and often contains survivor information. (And mnay users circumvent the process now by posting a photo of the obit, over which I have no control.) In addition, the new format is visually confusing and occupies way too much screen space per suggestion, making the review process very cumbersome. Just the option to designate someone a veteran will create hundreds, if not thousands, of edits for me to review. As an upaid volunteer, this whole process is becoming too cumbersome. I’m cutting way back on the daily obits I review and enter. It’s just becoming too much work. IMHO, just because you *can* do something with programming, that doesn’t mean you should.

  38. I really appreciate the updated Edit page. I had 12 edits waiting for me yesterday, including three with already transcribed bios. What a treat! I’m a long time member and memorial maintainer and contributor, and while change is hard for some, I embrace it. I’m glad to see Find a Grave moving forward with improvements to the process. Thanks for the hard work.

  39. I love that the Edits are now listed in the order that they will be approved, instead of alphabetical order. This allows me to look at them the way I submitted them, generally as families that I’m adding from a census. It’s also easy for me to see if I’ve missed a family member this way. I do wish we had the option to add the entire family as one Edit through the parents because it looks like I’m sending a lot of random Edits to the person maintaining each memorial because I have to submit each child separately. They tend NOT to want to approve a lot of Edits at once. Also, on the memorial section under Family Members, I would like to ALWAYS see the siblings under the parents on the LEFT side, and the children under the spouse on the RIGHT side. With some family having children around the same age as their younger siblings, it get confusing when siblings or children listed are on the opposite side.

  40. When I try to filter edits by the Suggester, it gets hung up and eventually times out.
    All the other filters work fine.

  41. The Notes field intended to convey additional notes to the person managing the memorial is too restricted in the number of characters. If one wishes to supply evidence of the suggested edits, there needs to be more room for the text of relevant records. Thanks for this idea, however.

  42. Love your changes! When I do an edit and enter the spouse, I also try to add the year of marriage to it. When I go back to look at the edits I submitted, it doesn’t appear to show the year of marriage that I added. Is it there? Or does entering that information not come through on the edits to the manager?

  43. Is there a way to let the person that created a memorial know when a family member is taking it over, like an email or something?

  44. Since the new update, I noticed that my processed edits are missing. My accepted suggested edits I’ve sent are organized by newest processed. I see the ones for May 2023 but the second page skips to 2020 even though I have processed edits from 2021, 2022, and the rest of 2023

  45. Has anyone had edits sent to a contributor that you didn’t send? I have had two different contributors tell me they received edits for memorials they made from me. I never sent the edits to the two memorials. How is this possible? I don’t know anything about the two people the contributors received edits for so it wasn’t me that sent the edits.

    • I noticed that when I suggested a spouse for a person on one memorial, it showed up as a suggested edit on the suggested spouse’s memorial. That surprised me. I am not sure what the impact of that will be. Does the first MM that deals with the suggested edit accept it? Does it then disappear from the other MM’s list?

    • I experienced this issue today as well. It appears I sent an edit for a memorial (including a note) that I know nothing about and have never visited. I was submitting edits for other memorials around the same time. The edit seems accurate so I hate to cancel it, but I didn’t send it or write the note. I hope this can be fixed, I don’t want to take credit or be responsible for edits I didn’t suggest.

      • I wasn’t sure what was going on when a contributor sent me a message asking for the source of death location for a memorial she manages. “Supposedly” I sent her two other edits for this same memorial, one for adding F for female & the other edit was for the section & lot location in this cemetery in Michigan. I live in WV I have no knowledge of this cemetery in Michigan. I sent her a message telling her I did not sent the edits, she had accepted the first two edits but after getting my message telling her I didn’t send the edits she declined the third edit about the death location. The other one was in my email saying my edits for this other memorial was accepted. “Supposedly” I sent this other contributor an edit for the birth & death of this person in a cemetery in the state of Washington. I message the contributor and told her I did not send this edit for the birth & death of this person. The contributor put it in the bio section that I sent the edits and the date I sent the edit, she did edit the bio putting in the bio that there was confusion of the edit and who sent it.

  46. Finally, an easy way to indicate that the memorial is a cenotaph! Yay!

  47. My “accepted edits” count, which I’ve tracked for years, suddenly jumped from 9400 to over 15000 when the new system kicked in. I’ve just-now checked my Pending Suggestions Sent and there’s a suggestion posted this morning (May 20) that I *know* I did not make. Technical glitch? Is there bleeding between accounts?

  48. Please review your FindAGrave functionality for data downloads that is available under “Account” —> “Data and Privacy” —> “Data Downloads”.

    You have recently added new fields to the memorials but that information is not included in the downloads. Please ensure that all data can be extracted so I can create a complete archive snapshot of the memorials I maintain.

    My biggest concern is that the biography field is not included. How can I readily create a backup archive of the biographical information?

  49. Wow, these changes are amazing! Great job to all who worked so hard to make this happen! I can’t decide which of the many changes are my favorites. I’ve noticed a couple of bugs, and didn’t read through all of the previous comments. But it’s similar to the one posted above by Cheryl A Zill.

    On my “Suggested Edits – Pending” page, there is a suggestion to basically add the marriage year to an existing husband wife team. (The memorial already has the spouse listed, but no marriage year.)

    If I click on the memorial, the suggestion appears to not do much. It says the name of the current spouse, and suggests the same spouse. But it doesn’t MENTION the addition of the year. When I accept the change, the year DOES get added. It just doesn’t show on the memorial as part of the suggestion.

    I hope that makes sense.

  50. I LIKE the new system. But here’s a glitch. I opened my Edit page today, 5/20 at 2:50P, and found 20 edits for me to approve. I did not recognize the cemeteries, so checked. I do not manage these memorials. But edits to them are presented to me. I’m member number 47363392 , but these memorials belong to member # 47323470 . I have a screen shot, but don’t see that I can attach it. Mike Maxton

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