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:
- Suggest Edits and Community Interaction
- Processing Suggested Edits
- Suggest Edits
- Sending Suggest Edits and Notes
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.
With this new software change, I’m now not seeing anywhere that shows which member is submitting the requested edits?
Never understood why in the world an “approve all” feature has ever used, either…. unless requested edit verification is not actually being done to maintain Find a Grave’s memorial accuracy. Why bother to manage a gazillion memorials if you simply intend to hit one button to approve all changes?
A robot could do that… just saying.
If you are on a browser on a phone, you can see what member suggested the edit by looking under “By” after it shows Current/Suggested.
Concerning this automatic 21 day approval for suggested edits. Does this include requests to maintain memorials? I have quite a few requests that I have sent out with no responses one way or another. These requests were done over a month ago and all are members of my family. How can I get them switched over?
Prior requests sent through “suggest other correction” aren’t automatically accepted. You can forward your copy of the transfer request you sent to support@findagrave.com. Also include your relationship and the fact that the member didn’t respond. We will contact the member once more to make sure that they aren’t related and go through that process. When they aren’t related or don’t respond we will transfer management of the memorial to your account.
It must be a mistake because Mehitable Mathews died in 1812. Could it be the son, Benjamin Mathews (1794 -1864) that married the widow, Betsy Wilcox on October 19, 1806, in Halifax, Windham County, Vermont, instead of the dad, Benjamin Mathews (1755 – 1843)? There is also a grandson, Benjamin Mathews (1822- 1908) to add to the confusion of being three Benjamin Mathews in my family genealogy.
The diagram of the new edit page looks pretty, but I can’t get to it. I’m stuck in a loop between memorial page and “to edit you must log in.” (Logging in changes nothing.) Trying to peer at a memorial through a slot between various Find A Grave banners was bad enough.
Hi Faye, what device and browser are you using? Are you referring to the Edit page on a memorial you manage?
No, I’m referring to sending info to someone else’s memorial.
Laptop and Chrome
Can you send a screenshot of what you are seeing when you try to login and when you try to go to a Suggest Edits page? Please send that to support@findagrave.com. Then we can troubleshoot and see what the issue might be with your login.
The Gender data currently cannot be used for searches. It would be helpful if it could serve as a search filter and thereby support the main purpose of Finding a Grave.
So when my gender suggestion gets declined with the comment “This is obviously a male. I will no longer accept the edits when the person is obviously a male/female” I currently have no rebuttal.
Please inform us of the timeframe for making Gender a searchable field.
I usually transfer to the suggester and the suggestions go with the memorial and they can do it themselves.
Didn’t happen this time; had to approve it myself ( after I had transferred, really?)
Looked at my list of edits and found the edit I submitted for parents had ‘father deleted’, it would appear that the father’s memorial had been merged with another memorial, but the edit did not transfer to the merged memorial.
What is the memorial number where this is occurring?
After making suggested edits to memorials being managed by “Find a Grave” (8) sometimes the entry in my PENDING list shows that the memorial is being managed by “Find a Grave” and sometimes it instead displays the person who originally created the memorial. I think they should all be “ Find a Grave”.
Perhaps related, I continue to receive Accepted/Declined notices for memorials I am not familiar with. This has been reported by multiple people
We have been working on this issue and think we have it fixed. Have you received any of these notices today after 10 AM MST? (May 25)
My last alien encounter was just a sort time ago at 2:02 PM eastern May 25:
Suggested Edits Approved
The following suggested edits you submitted for the Frank Barry (1890–1963) Find a Grave memorial have been accepted.
Frank Barry (103950555)
Current Suggested
Birth Date: 1890 → 13 Dec 1890
Death Date: 1963 → 15 Apr 1963
Death Location: → Sparta, Monroe County, Wisconsin, USA
Veteran: No → Yes
Under ‘Suggested Edits-pending,’ If I have to leave my screen for a little while and come back to it to complete the corrections, the ‘Edits’ have disappeared and the screen won’t do anything, I have to start all over again. This is getting very frustrating. I’ve noticed a number of glitches that needs to be corrected.
Yes I just did again.
What browser and device are you using? Does this only happen on Suggest Edits – Pending?
I also had this happen
google
PC
I really like the updates to the Edit system! The only thing I can think of that would be nice in addtiion to the ability to mark someone as a veteran is to be able to mark them as either MIA or KIA (especially KIA). Also, why was the icon changed from dog tags to a “v”?
There were numerous complaints in the comments here, as well as on the post about the new veteran designation, about the dog tags.
Really liked the dog tags but not so much on the V for veterans.
I don’t like the “V” either. Maybe spell it out “Veteran” and make it a different color so you can SEE it. Doesn’t show up on the current background very well.
You can only sort on one field. Can I suggest that for equal values for that field, that the memorials be listed in alphabetical order. It appears their current order is random and there is really no reason for that.
CANARD CEMETERY NOVA SCOTIA SHOULD BE SPELLED CANARD ….NOT CANORD CEMETERY
cemetery@findagrave.com
Love all the new changes and features! Many of these are things I’ve thought “gee, why don’t they…” Many thanks for what must have been a lot of work!
HI, not impressed with the “auto” ticks appearing in the Acceptance box. Often I like to check details and now I have to uncheck the boxes almost every time. It worked fine the way it was.
Also when people now submit a bio their ID is not automatically attached so now no one can see who submitted the information.
Hi Geoff, we haven’t been able to replicate either of these issues. Are you still seeing them?
Sorry guys, getting away from tags good, but when I saw the “v” at first I thought is was a bug on my screen. With vision issues that Just does not make it (have large text and screen at 110%) and it is still really small and not clear what it stands for, for those coming to this site for the first time. What do other cultures us as a symbol?
K. Robrts, I’M NOT YELLING IN ALL CAPS, JUST LEGALLY BLIND. I COMPLETELY AGREE WITH THE “BUG ON THE SCREEN!” I HAVE A VERY LARGE SCREEN AND STILL BUMP MY MAGNIFICATION WAY UP TO 200% OR MORE WHEN NEEDED. I STILL COULDN’T TELL WHAT THAT BUG WAS. THE DOG TAGS WERE EASIER FOR ME TO SEE EVEN IF I HAD MY BROWSER SET AT ONLY 100%. I WISH THEY WOULD GO BACK TO THEM. ADDITIONALLY, THE “V” IF THAT IS WHAT FIND A GRAVE IS USING FOR VETERANS, THE “V” FOR ME WILL ALWAYS BE ASSOCIATED WITH WORLD WAR II. THE I HOPE FIND A GRAVE RETHINKS THE “V!”
Perhaps a flag, for example
https://clipartix.com/flag-clip-art-image-4376/
Find a Grave would have to have a flag for every country. That would be impossible (especially if a country changes it’s name and flag). I suggest just the word “Veteran” in a banner that doesn’t blend into with the background. Both the dog tags and the V are hard to see on the current background.
In response to the question “What do other cultures use as a symbol?” I only suggested a generic outline of a flag.
Found a bug
in edit for a suffix, I happen to go to memorial and edit screen, fixed a couple of items then noticed that Sr should have been in name (it was NOT blanked out for a suggested edit) so I added it, then remember that was the first reason I went of the memorial. Went back to check for the edit and the request to edit suffix was still there.
RE Veteran Marker: Allow me to add my voice to those who recommend returning to the dog tags icon. The little ‘v’ communicates nothing to anyone who hasn’t read the explanation. Dog tags are self-explanatory and meaningful.
The dog tag was not an inclusive symbol and didn’t work for all cultures and wars. This is an international website and I thank FG for listening.
Please bring back the Military Tags aka Dog Tags icon. To me that is the best way to honor our Veterans. The V is senseless. The Dog Tags icon made better sense to show that the person was Military.
George Washington didn’t wear dog tags.
The important thing is that the new field is a searchable item and can act as a filter to help locate someone’s grave. A discrete symbol is all that is needed to aide in this purpose.
For about the last month, the icon at the top of page that displays when there are suggestions waiting for me to approve, almost never longer works. It used to work great before. Thanks.
I am already getting frustrated with the amount of people who are leaving edits to only add the Veteran icon! This should be a matter of the manager of the memorials going back and adding it at their leisure, and not be forced into doing it when someone wants to send dozens of requests to add it. Silly and unreasonable, as if they have nothing better to do.
Who’s “forcing” you to do it? If you don’t have the time to properly manage the memorial, leave it for 21 days, and it will auto-approve.
OR TRANSFER TO #8. FINDAGRAVE WILL MANAGE IT, AND GIVE THE OIPPORTUNITY TO THERS TO MANAGE IT..
My passion is linking up family members to essentially make family trees on FG so love your new changes. (I.e. NOTES section and DELETE save extra steps. Locking up sections, sometimes for months, caused me a lot of frustration so UNLOCKING was great too. ) Cheers. Bill
Seems we lost the function to send ourselves a copy of what we send to the memorial manager.. This is a an important tool to keep track of info..
That function should still be showing as a checkmark on the Contact Manager page, where the message is written. Do you see a checkbox there?
Often, I send an edit to the bio, but do not send a message to the Manager, assuming the suggested edit is self-explanatory. Now that suggested edits to the bio can be sent directly, and not through Suggest Other Edits, I also would like to be able to send my suggested bio edits to myself as an email, to facilitate my follow up later, if needed.
I received an email message from another contributor about an edit—-when I pulled up the memorial there was several edits to be approved—I had no suggested edits listed on my profile page. I wonder how many others are sitting out there and not showing up…..
Hi Judy, can you provide a memorial ID? This is likely a bug and we need more information to find it. Thank you.
To FG Manager:
East Coast Memorial ID 1989909 has at the moment 05/26/2023 10:25 Am EST only 503 matching records for Veteran. Why was it not done automatically by FG ? It has over 4600 veterans listed.
Hi William, Find a Grave marked memorials that were already imported with a military designation in the early years of the site. The veteran designation is editable under Suggest Edits for that memorial.
And it’s a shame that’s not an editable field because that “designation” is on a lot of memorials where it shouldn’t be (spouses, children, etc.).
You send a message to the creator/manager of the memorial, and they can’t remove it either.
Veteran tags weren’t automatically applied – at least not in any of the U.S. national cemeteries I’ve encountered.
Please go back to how it was before. I liked the other way with the group of names listed be for I accepted it. I like it when the families put in the information for me to accept. I don’t have a lot of time to do this but try my best to help people.
The old Suggest Other Comment had a much longer character length. This made it possible to put the links and explanations into one message. It might be a better idea the switch the character lengths between notes and contact manager. This way the notes about the change will stay with the memorial. As it is I have to leave a note in the notes section for them to look for the change documentation in the contact manager section. This will eliminate them getting two messages.
Not thrilled. I cannot even select all edits for a single person. Also, having to accept for each person is annoying and when the page refreshes, it jumps so that I am no longer seeing the first person on the page. I thought this was only on my cell phone, but I see it is also on my laptop.
We are working on bringing back a select all/accept all for each memorial set. What browser and device are you using when you see this jump? Where does the page jump to?
Since the new update, we am missing all my accepted suggested edits from 2021, 2022, and 2023 except for May
I checked if I had the same problem.
I selected all of 2021. Have 21956 approved edits. Starting in January, ending in December.
Not saying you haven’t found a problem, but it’s not happening for everyone.
While I appreciate the work these changes have taken, I am being overcome with edit suggestions of too many details. I manage 16,000 memorials but am not going to add many more because I am receiving hundreds of edits per week to mark Veterans, put a period after the middle initial, indicate M and F (Isn’t this passe with all the emphasis on LGBTQ issues? You can’t even say Miss, Mr., him, her anymore!), etc. I have enjoyed being a contributor, but oh, dear, this is literally becoming a part-time job for me.
I am guilty of adding much information to memorials that are dear to me, but what happened to just finding the grave and maybe posting a photo of the gravestone? Find a Grave is now a genealogy tool linked to Ancestry.
I want my memorials to be correct. That requires me to research these edits rather than wait for them to be automatically accepted when they may not be accurate. I had an edit to link a child to parents who were younger than him – too many George and Anna Smiths out there, and they made a wrong guess. I think others are overwhelmed also. I sent an edit that was declined with the comment, “I don’t have time to look this up. Try back next month.” I had no idea what my suggestion was, so I can’t go back to it next month! My work to research the family and send links was just dismissed. One of my valid suggested edits was declined with a comment, “Who the ___ are you and why the ___ do you want to change my memorial? You don’t know everything.” Oh, wow.
I don’t necessarily want bio suggestions made directly to my memorials. I don’t mind a direct email edit suggestion, but if I accept bio info, is my previous bio going to be deleted? I don’t want to try one to find out. Yikes.
Thank you for the opportunity to hear us.
For what it’s worth, a period after an initial is in the guidelines for Find A Grave.
As for responses like the one you received? That’s against Find A Grave guidelines as well. That user should be reported with a screenshot of the message they sent.
As for bio edits, it will show you what you had and what the revision looks like before you approve it or deny it. The only bio edits I’ve submitted since this started were to remove the names of living relatives (which is also against Find A Grave guidelines).
WOW.., THEY WERE SURE NASTY,,, THEY SGHOULDN’T BE ON FINDAGRAVE ITS ABOUT COLLABORATION.. WORKING TOGETHER SO SORRY
i absolutely agree with this. I am getting bombarded with the hundreds just to mark veteran or M / F I am certainly not going to spend half my day with these edits – I would need proof that someone is a veteran ( if the marker is not present ) I adopt hundreds of orphan memorials – research as much as possible & continue with mgmnt. of said memorial, but like you, its the research, a hobby, certainly not a part time job
It takes seconds to accept the M/F edit. If you clear all the other edits in your queue you can accept them in bulk by selecting all. If you have been researching them, why haven’t you entered the M/F already. Similarly with the Veteran marker you can easily add this and once it’s done it’s done. If it really is all too much for you just leave them to auto edit.
What happened to “More search options”? When I press the box, it changes to “Fewer search options”. If I know the memorial number, there is no place to enter it.
We haven’t been able to replicate this issue. What device and browser are you using?
For those questioning changing the Bio information. Today I went in and requested a change. I just typed under the existing information and when I saved the suggestion I went to my pending changes page clicked on the bio information (compare) and the existing information was there as well as my new additional information. We as contributors need to be careful of existing information.
Cenotaph- Is there any way to link an actual grave to a cenotaph in a separate cemetery so that one name can show both?
Hi Sharon, you can use the biography to link a memorial to another memorial. You can learn more about linking them together https://support.findagrave.com/s/article/Cenotaph-and-Monument-Information#_How_can_I
We look forward to improving this process in the future.
Bad link
I’ve only just happened upon these changes today when making a suggestion. I think it’s lovely & had been much needed. Thank you!! 🙌🏼🙌🏼
My only request is: in the future, can PayPal be added as a payment form to sponsor memorials?
There is new a problem with merged memorials and edits. I.e. if I suggest an edit that refers to a memorial, and that memorial gets merged, the edit will get rejected with the error message that the memorial no longer exists. This didn’t happen in the past. It used to follow to the other memorial that it was merged with. Thanks.
I have noticed in the mergers that the photos don’t always transfer
Why have you turned off the auto-approvals after 21 days?
They had been working properly for a few days, and now you’ve turned them off again.