On Christmas Day 2024, a Find a Grave member wrote to us to share his experience with the site. He has been researching a military group his grandfather was part of and as he researches members of the group, he puts a virtual flower on their memorials with details about his project. He told us about several cases where those flowers helped him connect with others who were able to share information, learn about family members from him and help him in his research. He said, “I would not have been able to learn ANY of these things without Find a Grave.”
Stories like this highlight the value of the Find a Grave community and the work you are all doing in a way that numbers never can, but, just for fun, here are a few numbers that tell something of the story of what the Find a Grave community accomplished in 2024.
These are the 10 countries where the community has done the most work in 2024:
By contrast, here are a few places where not much was added to Find a Grave in 2024, just in case you are still planning this year’s vacation.
Faroe Islands, Mongolia, Togo, or, if you are looking for something a bit more tropical, Belize or Martinique.
If you do plan to contribute to Find a Grave while traveling, please be sure to know and follow local laws and customs related to cemeteries.
Here are some famous people who passed away this year whose memorials were among the most viewed:
And here are a few people who passed in 2024 who weren’t famous, but have been remembered through Find a Grave memorials:
Thanks for all your amazing work in 2024. You are making a real difference for people all over the world.
How do I get to the necrology page?
Thanks for the question. If you go to the Famous tab then look on the right side you’ll see a box that includes, “Born/Died on this date,” “Yearly Necrologies” and some other interesting lists of famous folks.
I have used and recommended Find a Grave to so many people. Sometimes I have found mistakes left by other people and written to you and they were checked out and replaced by the correct info. This site beats your competitor by so much it is unbelievable!
I love Find a Grave.
Merci à ce groupe qui m’a permis de retrouver la place ou mon grand-père et ma grand tante était enterer. Et par la même occasion recevoir des photos.
I remember the days before Find a Grave was established on line. The information you can find on individuals who have passed on, not just biographical data but especially including the individual’s connections to family members, is incredibly invaluable when you have exhausted all other sources. I am grateful to have it as a resource in tracing my family tree (and all its branches), and hope it stays on line forever. Thank you for what you do.
Find a Grave has been a life-saver, so to speak, for me. I have used it numerous times and certainly hope it lasts forever.
I had lost a great friend when I was 13 just weeks after moving from Virginia to Michigan in 1975. Thru some searching thru Find a Grave I was able to find Randy’s grave 47 years later. I’m now 62 and it was great finding him and paying my respects so many years later. Thank You for what you do for others ❤️
I love this website & has helped me fill in many blanks to my family genealogy. I have also submitted corrections.
Find a Grave has given me family that I thought were would be lost due to the years that have past. But because of all the people who put in the time to document our many generations across the country, I know where they lived. Thank you to all the volunteers!
I love Find a Grave. I like helping others find their ancestors. It also helps veterans not be forgotten.
Find a Grave brought my half brother and I together. He was adopted and after his adoptive parents passed, he began looking for his biological parents. He searched for clues in your listings. I had left a message to my dad on his page and my brother contacted me and long story short. What a happy day!
I have on several occassions found that there are memorials for members of my own family that other people are managing but I cant leave a message saying I would like to take over the memorial update and maintenace. Their message site is closed or not accdping messages , how do I bypass this to message them or manage family memorials
Thanks for the question. Toward the bottom of the “Suggest Edits” page of the memorial, you will find a “Contact manager” button. That will allow you to send a message to the manager of the memorial. If you don’t hear back from the manager after 21 days, you can reach out to the support team through the Contact page (linked at the bottom of the site – https://www.findagrave.com/contact) and they can help.
Go to your relative’s memorial and add suggestions, down past almost everything else is a tab that says contact manager. Click on that and ask them to transfer the memorial to you.
Darla
Find a Grave has given me a vocation in my retirement. Not only do I research my own family, I research other families. I love to add a family to someone who’s all alone on Find a Grave. It’s very gratifying.
Since finding this web site I have been linking my family’s tree . Both and mother and fathers sides of the family. And have met online some very nice and wonderful people helping me along the way.
A few years back, someone posted a photo of my great-aunt that they had bought in an antique shop. We were so glad to have this image of her. Since then, I have developed the hobby of trying to unite high-quality images with their families via Find a Grave. It’s a very gratifying experience when you are able to retrieve someone’s lost family history. I urge other members to give it a try. Most vintage photos (including, alas. most Civil War soldiers) are unidentified. One good strategy is to buy a vintage family album — many are available on line. If you can find identified tintypes, these make very good candidates, just remember that the image is reversed. Or, have a look at the Smithsonian’s collections. They have a large photo collection plus many books with high-resolution scans of portrait photographs. Look for titles like “The Illustrated Laconian”. Many of these books are available for purchase on line, but the resolution is seldom sufficient.
I enjoy volunteering for Find-a-Grave for many reasons. I like helping other folks connect to their family roots. I enjoy learning about local history. It gives me a reason to be outdoors in a usually quiet location. I get a satisfaction in putting clues together like a detective. Finally, I’ve learned which type of headstones need less maintenance.
Thanks to Find a Grave, my husband and I were able to locate his 5X great grandfather’s burial location. The original tombstone was laying flat, broken, and covered over with dirt and grass. After several trips to the site to clean it up, we hired a restorer who raised the stone, repaired the marker, and erected it on the base which had, over time, sunk six inches underground. We take great pride in having discovered and rescued this headstone which we hope will inspire our family and future descendants to consider their heritage and think about what legacy they will leave behind for their children and beyond.
I LOVE Find a Grave. I started with just my own family and ancestry but now have found it as a great past time to help fill the hours of my retirement. I love helping other people and doing research to link family members together. I also love visiting the many cemeteries in my area and photographing headstones. Thanks so much to all the volunteers that make this a great site and that love contributing just as much as I do.
I love using Find a Grave. I’ve found so much information about my family here. I appreciate being able to add and correct the records so future users will see my family records correctly.
I love Find a Grave, but am disappointed that there are members who claim grave sites that they have no connection to.
When someone adds a new site they are automatically made the manager. I imagine most are willing and comfortable with passing the management of the site onto someone who has connections. Just ask.
I used this site to find where my grandmother was buried. She passed in 1949, before I was born. Any of my relatives that had any info on her have also passed, so this was extremely useful.
I found my mom’s grave on here and I was actually able to visit it!
What’s the latest on the backlog of manual reviews of duplicates? Almost six weeks is a long time.
Processing duplicates has fallen a bit behind, due to backlog from the holidays. We’ve been processing them and will continue to until we are more caught up. Thanks for your patience and understanding.