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. For biographical change suggestions I really like how you have that COMPARE button to be able to review the before & after text. I appreciate how you’ve provided the option to use color to identify the differences and you have two color schemes to accommodate vision differences.

    After accepting such a suggestion, the before and after text plus the COMPARE feature continue to reside in the ACCEPTED record. This allows future reviews of what the original text was.

    HOWEVER, if the change involves deleting the entire original biography the COMPARE option isn’t available . If accepted or auto-accepted there remains no record of the original text in the ACCEPTED log. The original text has gone poof. The log just says “Bio removed”.

    I have done other testing and have found other situations where COMPARE and the retention of the original text fails to be triggered.

    Please change this and always offer COMPARE and the data retention for all changes.

  3. Thank you for making these changes to the edits. I appreciate all of the thought and work that went into this update.
    I would like it if you could let the memorial manager delete photos that someone else has posted. I have had to reach out to people to remove photos many times. Sometimes these requests are ignored and I then end up sending an email to Find a Grave to remove them.

  4. What will now be the preferred method to request a transfer since the ‘Suggest Other Correction’ button is gone? Via Notes or Contact Manager. Please make sure the help link is updated, because it still directs you to use ‘Suggest Other Correction’. Otherwise, I think the changes are great. Thanks!

    • The Contact manager button is used to contact the manager about the specific memorial or if they don’t have a contact method on their Profile. Can you share the help link that needs to be updated? We haven’t been able to find that link you are mentioning. Thanks for your help!

      • The “Contact Manager” button is worthless if they have their messages turned off. Many managers have it set as “Not Accepting Messages”. And if they are inactive or changed their email (but not on Find a Grave) you still can’t contact them.

      • If someone has their messaging turned off, they should be relieved of the position of managing a memorial. Suggested updated often need more explanation than can be put in the “suggested edit” page. In the same thought, those requesting photos should also have messaging turned on. I will avoid getting photos for those who have messaging turned off and are not available for questioning.

      • The Contact Manager button will send an email to the manager whether or not they have a contact method available on their Profile.

      • Thanks, Kevin. The sentence has been updated and more information added about Contact Manager.

  5. My list of Pending Suggestions shows one that is not mine! It is for a marriage date, added to memorial id 148428064. I don’t recognize the name(s), the grave is in West Virginia (a place I do not research), … there is no way I made this suggestion!

    • I have been getting emails about approved edits for memorials that I have never seen and for which I did not suggest edits. It seems like the suggestions and the people making them are getting mixed up. Other than that, the new system seems to be working well for me.

      • I’ve had a few of these show up too. For a couple of them, I had messages from the manager wanting clarification on exactly what the suggestions were and where I got the information. I told both of them that I couldn’t help them because I hadn’t made the suggestions.

  6. Talk about a change. Frankly, I don’t like it. Far too busy, both on the suggestion page and on the memorial itself. Sensory overload.

    There are also glitches. As a manager, when you “select” an edit to approve or disapprove, the form automatically fills in the next couple of suggestions for another memorial as “selected” by me.

    The options for turning down a suggestion kept changing between the old format to the new one. You should make one of the canned denial responses, an automatic “please provide source.” The other canned responses are rarely used if I have to make denials for lack of sources. Instead, I have to write a note every time, to clarify the problem for the person making the suggestion.

    By making each suggestion separate, there is far too much information in one place. Combing through each suggestion within the actual memorial takes far more time. The program response time seems slower too.

    I’m supposing the “contact manager” function is via private email…..or at least I hope so.

    The headstone photo is unnecessary. I found myself clicking on the photo to open the memorial. Photo and the name link to the memorial are too close together. Some of us aren’t spring chickens.

    I like that there is now a Veteran function, although I always added that at the top of the bio. I would also like to see something for police officers and firemen.

    Are multiple people finally able to make suggestions to one memorial? Typically, a person with a secondary suggestion is locked out of doing one, due to another suggestion having been submitted.

    DM

  7. I first saw the new format today. There were 44 edits. I found it very tedious to try to spot the actual changes as there were so many entries for contributor and dates. I marked acceptable ones to the bottom and didnt realize you have to do one at a time. So I had to redo them all and approve selected many times. Probably took 3 times longer than in the past. Maybe will get more proficient next time .

  8. With the new system, all the suggested edits remain in my queue after I have transferred the memorial to another person and am no longer responsible for it.

  9. I would like to know how one of my memorials was allowed to be merged with another memorial and taken over by someone who does not know the person in the memorial at all. If they did, they would not have merged the memorial . I created a memorial for my cousin, and someone merged the memorial with her mother even though the biography states that she is the daughter of the woman they merged the memorial with. I respectfully requested through Find a Grave channels to have the memorial returned to it’s original condition and have not heard one word about the correction of this error.

  11. LOVE all of the updates, especially the ability to send edits for the bio, the cemetery and the gravesite details.

    However, I’m already encountering that the folks who just ignored their “Suggest other corrections” messages don’t bother to read the details/evidence provided in the notes. They just click “decline” and select that the information conflicts with theirs.

    So, with those creators/managers, this isn’t reducing the e-mail workflow for edit@findagrave.com. Once it’s denied, the e-mail is headed to Find A Grave.

  12. I encountered a problem today. I suggested edits for a few pages including 183681416 and the manager transferred the pages to me with the edits still pending. Although I was now the manager and the approve buttons appeared for me, clicking them did nothing other than refresh the page. I was unable to approve any of the edits I’d suggested individually or all at once. I had to cancel each edit and then make the changes again.

    I have left one change on 183681416 pending so it can be reviewed because it also shows a second issue. The preview shows the original spouse and suggested spouse as identical, which they are, but the suggestion was to add the year of marriage. The preview is lacking the addition of the marriage year.

    Thank you

  13. I would like to correct the GPS location for the Wilson Family Cemetery (Cemetery ID: 2207043) in Cleveland Co, AR. I followed the ones listed on the site (Coordinates: 33.74047, -92.27881) and wondered all over the woods trying to find the cemetery. No where in sight. I was about to give up and on the return back to town I saw another road leading into the woods and decided to try it. Sure enough, it took me to the correct location. I pinned the location on my phone and here are the correct coordinates (33.7371736, -92.2773440). It would really help if the coordinates were corrected.

  14. On my iPhone SE, when I view suggestions sent to me, it doesn’t list the header line that includes the “Accept All” button, in Portrait iphone mode. I can see it in Landscape mode, but that is a pain to use. This was never a problem before. Thanks.

  15. Find a Grave Staff,
    The new changes are a welcome new tool. Monuments and Cenotaphs now require less time to accurately mark and have updated. Thank you.

    Here is my concern, what is going to prevent merger suggestions of Monuments, Cenotaph and Actual Burials? Formally only FaG staff could perform this action via an email request. I have over 2 years of research, corrections, validation in Manila, Honolulu Memorial and Punch Bowl. Many members do not research, they see 2 memorials with the same person and assume they are duplicates. It is not uncommon for those lost in The Pacific in WWII, to have a Monument (Manila/Honolulu) as well as multiple Cenotaphs in the US, some even have hometown Monuments, add in the fact that many have been recovered, returned home and interred adding a physical burial. There are 3000+ memorials in Manila alone that are inconclusive in the fact if they are interred in Manila or listed on the Tablets of The Missing.

    Without some safe guard we are risking the loss of valuable accurate information in my humble opinion.

    Regards
    B

    • Thanks for your comment. We still have all the checks in place to avoid merging cenotaphs with memorials, etc. This change only updates how that cenotaph or monument designation is applied. Please let us know if you find an example where there is a problem.

  17. I’m finding that if I enter a spouse, then add the marriage year, the ID for the spouse is retained but not the year of marriage. Am I missing something?

  18. There’s a ton to like about this new edit system despite a few teething bugs. Great work team!
    I appreciate that the Save button gives you an opportunity to leave a note before saving after you click it a second time. IMHO this is a very good idea.
    However … I’ve got it now. And it is not at all ergonomic to have to always click the Save button twice – I find my arm getting tired and a bit sore. Would it be possible to also add a “Save without a note” button that allows you save and leave the page with a single click?

  19. I have already commented positively on the new edits system and still think its a great update. However, the new Veteran tag is causing some debate in the forums on FG. The definition of a Veteran is an ex-member of the armed forces but FG have decided to make no distinction between Veterans, Casualties and Civilian deaths. In fact the Veteran Dog Tag icon has already been auto added to millions of memorials. I think this is a mistake and FG should rethink their decision on this. Recognising those that served and died, served and survived or died as a result is very important in my opinion.
    There has also been some question over the use of the Dog Tag icon since this is not seen as a positive image in some countries and yet has been imposed on all. Apparently in Australia a Dog Tag was sometimes known as a “dead meat ticket” and so is not an affectionate representation for a Veterans memorial. What is wrong with just using the word Veteran as we do for Cenotaphs?

    • So the “veteran” icon has a bad connotation, need a cultural sensitivity appraisal and consider egocentric approach to icon
      If Findagrave wants to approach recognition of military service rather than the portion of those that survived and are considered “Veterans” by MILITARY standards, they should also rethink, and relabel as recognition for “Military Service” rather than Veteran. The difference is an extremely emotionally charged impact. My Father survived, he is a Veteran, some of his friends did not, they are Soldiers, both provided “Military Service.”

      • My Marine said the exact same thing, he is a Veteran with very real issues to his combat related TDY’s.

  20. Glitch
    Not sure why but when connections for parents are added, I’m getting a suggestion for the spouse that is already connected. Makes it look like a change (no it is not marriage date that I can see) is being suggested when there is not.

    • We haven’t been able to replicate this issue. Do you have a memorial ID where this is occurring?

  22. The onslaught of edits – to add a gender to older memorials where it was not originally entered, and to add the new veteran notation feature – has begun. Another unintended consequence which will result in hours of wasted time for contributors who want to effectively manage memorials instead of blindly accepting edits in bulk. Thanks ever so much, Find a Grave.

    • Yes!! Feels like a bunch of nonsense, I don’t get a w2 from these people. its a volunteer thing and they clearly did not give much thought to it.

  23. I find the new layout of Suggestions too busy. I don’t need to know the ID of the suggestor or the date suggested right up front. I only want to see the suggestion and have the Accept or Deny button in easy reach. If you must include this info, put it at the Far Right and the Accept of Deny
    Button in the Middle. My eyes have to keep darting back and forth for his edit and it is
    east to not aline rows properly. I liked the old way…it was faster and I felt more in control of info.

  24. I am enjoying the new edit possibilities! It’s especially nice to suggest a bio to a contributor who is very inactive and never adds any. I just went back and suggested cemetery change due to having a photo in correct cemetery and memorial placed where person was cremated, but not buried. Graveside details is also great for when I take a photo and want to add a detail.

  25. Carol P.
    I do hope that Bio updates will not automatically be approved. I spend many hours researching and writing biographies for the memorials I manage. I would hate for them to be altered without my knowledge. Also when people submit biographies I often have to correct spelling, grammar etc before adding. Ancestry has so many glaring errors that people have added it’s unbelievable sometimes. I will not knowingly add these things if wrong. These memorial pages are hopefully for future generations to look at and remember these people.

    • If you manage them, then all you have to do is approve or disapprove by 21 days.

  26. Hi, good updates. When i suggest an edit to a memorial I like to put anything useful in the field that used to be, “Suggest more edits” or something similar. That had an option to send a copy of the suggestion to me as an email. Otherwise, if the manager has a question for me, I don’t always remember the details, and I don’t recall being able to easily see that in the Suggestions I’ve Sent area (I could be mistaken). Do we now automatically receive copies of the suggestions we send, or is that no longer an option?

    • Thanks for your comment. All the standard suggestions you make are recorded on the Suggested Edits page. If you use the “Contact Manager” button, it works like the old Suggest other corrections option and you can request to have a copy of your message sent to yourself.

  27. Thank you!!! Especially being able to suggest a change of burial location!! Happy Dance!
    For everyone worried about the edits for the bio section, if a manager actually manages their memorials and researches the suggested edits first, there shouldn’t be a problem. I have sent countless suggest other edits and messages to managers who never even respond at all, even though I can see they are active by recent memorials or photos they have added.
    Thank you FindaGrave!!!!! 🙂

  28. Regarding Veteran Designation, thank you for adding that feature, and making it a searchable field. Several people have noted that perhaps “dog tags” are not the best symbol. In the US, for example, there are Veterans of WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Korea, etc… and Veterans of Civil War Union, the War of 1812, and the Revolutionary War. In some other countries, the use of “dog tags” may be even less appropriate. Is it possible to create a more universal symbol, or perhaps even just use the word “Veteran” or the words “Military Service” as a few other people have suggested?

  29. Is there any way to remove an edit that you have sent that has been declined by the manager of the memorial? I find it distracting to have declined edits that may have been accepted after it was declined and it’s still listed as a declined edit on my page.

  30. I have noticed a bug since the new Edit Updates. I have over 3000 accepted updates to my credit on the site. I went to that page to verify some corrections I had made for a memorial that I got a confirmation email about. I was able to pull up the memorial from the link in the email, but I could not find the list of changes entries on the ‘Suggested Edits · Accepted’ page. I cannot search by the deceased name, so I tried sorting in different ways. When I sorted by ‘Memorial(A-Z)’, the list was not sorted in any way I could see. Is it sorting by Given name, Surname or something else? Either way, it wasn’t. I tried sorting by the Cemetery Name. Again, it wasn’t. Is your sort function broken? I really do not want to scan through 3000+ edits to find one. How can you help?

  31. Some of my edits that I submitted over 21 days ago are not auto-approving. has anyone else experienced this issue?

    • Yes. I have many that are now more than 21 days old, and they still show as “Pending.”

  32. My understanding is that suggested changes to Memorial automatically process at 29 days. I have one (MID: 73795075) that I processed on 29 April. As of this afternoon it has not processed.
    2nd, with a couple of edits I process withing the last two days the Optional Note field when left blank would not allow me to process the change. I had to go in and hit the space bar to get the change to process.

    • It’s supposed to be 21 days according to all of the documentation AND comments made here in responses to this post.

      I sent an e-mail to feedback@findagrave.com about it, and I got a response that they were forwarding it to the support team to figure out the problem. They didn’t say it was 29 days.

  33. I love that in the new update the related fields don’t lock because before I was hesitant to enter certain info if I didn’t have ALL the info.

    I would really like to see a field added for internment date. Frequently, I see memorials that have been added that have the internment date as the death date and then a note in the bio stating that it’s the internment date because the person who created the memorial didn’t know the death date I guess? If there was a spot for the internment date they could utilize that instead of putting incorrect info in the death date.

  34. UGH! The edits for the biography section of the memorials are crazy. I am getting edits adding living people, internet links, etc. I try to modify the information and end up messing up the whole biography and have to go look the obituary up and redo them. Totally frustrating disaster. I am just going to deny them to save myself work!!
    I do a lot of military cemeteries and am overloaded with edits designating them as veterans–they are in a MILITARY cemetery with all the information about their service. I understand the military designation for those not buried in a military cemetery; but sending them for people buried in a military cemetery is just extra work for managers.
    Lots of edits for M/F-when it is clear what sex the person is by their name. I do edits daily and this is an overload for me, I see a lot of messed up memorials for people who just allow the information to go through on auto approve.

    • “I see a lot of messed up memorials for people who just allow the information to go through on auto approve.”

      The point is that they’re not supposed to do that. Perhaps Find A Grave will start monitoring that and handle inactive accounts (intentionally ignoring edits should be considered inactive) as they see fit.

      • I agree that Find a Grave should monitor accounts that do not respond or just let edits go automatically. There are quite a few that get all excited about genealogy for a few months, add memorials, ask for transfers of family, then just let them hang out there. Maybe Find a Grave could email them with something to the effect that if they do not reply to Find a Grave in 30 days their memorials will be taken over by Find a Grave and their account deleted.

      • It gets even worse when they’re “active” to add/collect more memorials for their counts, but they never (NEVER) touch edits.

    • RE: “Lots of edits for M/F-when it is clear what sex the person is by their name.”
      I wouldn’t have guessed that Joyce Kilmer was a male poet or that another person who had a masculine name was actually a female.
      With all the unusual names babies are given “these days” anything is possible. I appreciate knowing if the deceased was identified as Male or Female.

  35. Why is there no place to send me a copy of what I suggested like before? I always go back after 30 days to check if the edit(s) were made unless the manager does them and I get notified. Then I send them to edits@findagrave.com to be made.

    And another question…I know there are only two genders but with the way of the world today what will you do about the others in the future?

    • There are only two genders…. and if Find A Grave starts adding more… I can tell you I will decline or no longer be a volunteer.

      • Yes, all this is woke carp!! And the gender feature has always been there but if you truly can’t disern for yourself or at least find out (Google) then maybe some ought to sit it out.

      • I probably won’t live long enough to see gender changes for this generation on Find a Grave but I was just wondering. I know my genealogical database has three – M-F and “unknown”. I use the “unknown” for when I don’t know if the “infant” was M or F (before 1906) or if an obit says XYZ had three children but doesn’t differentiate whether “Chris” was M or F.

    • Regarding the copy of messages, my “guess” would be since everything is now editable and will auto-approve after 21 days, they just expect you to check your “Declined” items.

      Of course, this isn’t helping reduce their e-mail count as I expect they intended. Now with the ability to actually remove living relatives from bios, people are just clicking “Decline” and saying “Obit already posted” without reading the note.

      So off goes an e-mail to Find A Grave!

  36. I agree… The edits for Bio Section should not be open for everyone… it makes it very difficult
    for everyone. There can be dozens of family members from different sides and everyone has an opion. Some people want to express unpleasant deaths or divorces. It’s not the place.

    • It also makes it easier (MUCH easier) for submitting corrections on blatantly incorrect information. Previously, managers could just ignore the “Suggest other corrections” messages and never make the changes. Now, they have to act.

      When they deny a legitimate edit, it can be forwarded to Find A Grave to be processed.

    • Ditto on the unpleasant death aspect, there is enough dark news currently, and it is only a blink of time out of the entire person’s life. It is as bad as those who entered people who die by the death penalty and relived the gruesome aspect of their crime. People will complain that I don’t tolerate this kind of bio info. I fear that Findagrave won’t uphold my ethics and plop the obit anyway

      • Actually, Find A Grave agrees with you. I have had two in a cemetery I work on where details of the person being killed were in the bio. Both times, Find A Grave staff removed that information after the creator/manager refused.

  37. I am Bombarded with edits -/ female or male: suggested by whoever! I am not going to spend 30-45min checking all these unnecessary boxes! I managed thousands of memorials, many which were orphaned. That’s more work for you because there are already hundreds of automated edits being done because memorial mgrs are not doing what they are supposed to do! Now they really won’t!!

    • I am sending all the orphans I took on back to findagrave since they collect a check. I sure as heck don’t. And I am not inclined to fritter away more of my life on this bullmalarky.

      • I thought people volunteer because they want to or they are caring people. If you have so much attitude, why don’t you just stop volunteering? Or just decline everything?

      • Declining everything isn’t an appropriate option. If anyone does that just to be lazy or spiteful, they should be removed.

        People know what they’re getting into when they join Find A Grave. If they CHOOSE to take on tens of thousands (in some cases, hundreds of thousands) of memorials and don’t want to maintain them properly, they have no one to blame but themselves.

      • Surely the easiest thing would be to ignore them and let them auto edit after 21 days.

    • If you didn’t intend managing these orphaned memorials correctly, why did you adopt them in the first place? If you don’t want to do the job, please transfer them back to FG and someone who does have the time to manage them can take them over. The M/F edit is one click and then it’s done.

  39. I can see that I submitted an edit for the spouse, but the fact that I also submitted a specific year married is absent. So to be sure, I cancelled my edit and resubmitted with year again, still I cannot see the year. We need to see the year married as an edit. Thanks

  40. Could you please set it up to send me an email when I have suggested edits? I don’t get very many and sometimes neglect to check for them for a while causing delays in having them evaluated. An email notifying me that there are pending suggestions would serve as a reminder to check.
    Thank you!

  41. Please remove the person who suggested the edit and the date they suggested it after every edit on one person’s memorial and just have one listing for that at the bottom of all the edits. Makes going through the edits way more time consuming. Thank you

  42. Please add Gender as a search filter in the main “Memorial Search”.

  43. Rather newly active, I have had lots of things to learn. I just started to feel a small bit like I was getting the old ways right. But I welcome improvement. Bravo!

  44. Unactioned edits are NOT auto-approving after 21 days. I have edits from 4/28 which should have auto-approved on the 20th, and I have edits from 4/30 which should have auto-approved today (4/22).

    All of these still show in the “pending” queue.

  45. As a veteran myself, the widow of a veteran, the daughter and sister of a veteran, I would simply prefer the word Veteran over any icon especially not a dog tag! Thanks for all the good work that is done at Find a Grave.

  46. On the “Contribute to Find a Grave” page, the quantity numbers for “Photo Requests,” “Suggested Edits, ” etc. no longer show up near the Icons, which is the first and main place you have looked in years passed.

  47. Veteran’s -1. Not everyone that is buried in a veteran’s cemetery is a veteran (ie a spouse) and yet it seems that all have been marked as such automatically which has meant time spent by the manager unmarking them.
    2. Not everyone who is a veteran wants their life defined as such (ie my father).
    3. Veteran of what? – the first edit I got was to mark a member of the CSA as a veteran.

    Its enough to put their service dates/regiment in the bio there was no need for a new icon enabled by SAC.

    • The problem comes in when there are creators/managers who REFUSE to put the service dates and details in the bio. I have encountered that with a couple of memorial “collectors” regarding U.S. national cemeteries.

  48. Under “suggestions I sent” I see 3 suggestions for a memorial I’ve never seen before. Database glitch use of my id ?

  49. Since this new layout came out I have not been able to clear any records by hitting the accept button.

  50. When declining a suggested edit, can a drop down option be added that states that no source of information was provided? I just reviewed a number of edits, comparing source information I had to what had been suggested, before I declined many of the edits. It was time consuming and the reasons I selected may appear misleading.

    I was not aware of the suggested edits until a few days before they were due to expire because I had been away. I worry that there will be a lot of inaccurate information automatically posted after 21 days if not reviewed.

    Question – Are email notifications sent to the manager when there are pending suggestions?
    Thanks!

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