This is our first post in a series reflecting on our beginnings and the amazing difference our community has made since Find a Grave was created. It’s been over thirty years since then!
Find a Grave’s origins are surprisingly humble, rooted in the early days of the internet, a flatbed scanner, and the idea that people could work together all over the world, connecting and helping each other.
Recently, we sat down with Jim Tipton, the creator and founder of Find a Grave, in the peaceful shade of Mount Olivet Cemetery. His reflections offer a look back at how an interesting hobby of finding famous graves blossomed into a massive, altruistic community on a mission.
The Beginnings
Back in late 1995, when HTML and web pages were brand-new, Jim simply wanted to put something online because he was “kind of nerdy and into that world.” He initially launched a site with “noteworthy gravesites” written across the top, featuring a small collection of about 100 famous graves he had personally visited.
It’s difficult to remember the exact moment, but Jim suspects the name “Find a Grave” was created at 3 a.m. in his Salt Lake City basement. He remembers using Photoshop to create the iconic logo (a headstone with a question mark) to represent finding a grave. In an era before Google, for the website to be found he had to manually submit it to Netscape’s “What’s new” section. People would click on what’s new and go explore the site.
As the site gained traction through word of mouth, early members began mailing Jim physical envelopes and boxes, making up thousands of snapshots. He manually scanned every single picture on an Epson flatbed scanner, uploaded them to the site, and packaged many of them to mail back to the owners. Despite the limits of technology at the time, the passionate community continued to send in information to add to the site and every memorial, date, photo, location, or biography was the sharing of information for all.
Community and Technology
Jim mentioned living in London in college and going to Highgate Cemetery to explore and step away from the crowds – a true to life application for Jim’s description of “cemeteries as parks for introverts.” For years, Jim thought he was one of the few people who looked for cemeteries to visit when he was on vacation. When asked what surprised him most about the Find a Grave community, he said “that they exist.” Discovering that so many people shared his passion was exciting! As the community grew, they organically coined their own terminology, referring to their shared hobby of documenting cemeteries as “graving” and identifying themselves as “gravers.” Find a Grave is one of the internet’s earliest examples of what came to be known as crowdsourcing. But more importantly, through its mission and connecting people, it created a unique worldwide community and the largest collection of gravesite information, which continues to grow daily.
Just like today, community members had a strong connection to Find a Grave from the get go. Jim sent out temporary tattoos per request via mail and added a way for members to share their photos in the tattoo gallery. This member went a step further and had a permanent tattoo placed.
A charming tidbit that Jim mentioned was “the ticker.” About the year 2000, to track the influx of new data from the community, Jim built a tool for his computer that played a ticking sound every time a new memorial was added, a camera shutter for a new photo, and a pop sound for virtual flowers. Those sounds were magical, in that there were so many people contributing, connecting and collaborating through the site.
Pretty soon, digital cameras came along. Jim added online photo submissions as soon as the HTML web technology was available. Seeing that first digital photo roll in instantly was a massive turning point and he knew what a difference it was making to the community, being able to upload and see the benefits of their hard work immediately. Jim noted how thrilling this timeframe was as the site grew so much. Next was the addition of the community using smartphones and the Find a Grave app, which resulted in the site’s growth exploding. With so many members using the app, it’s easy to run into fellow gravers out in the cemetery and strike up a conversation about Find a Grave. Jim’s had these experiences too and they are some of his favorites.
Connection
Beyond being the world’s largest gravesite collection, the true heart of Find a Grave lies in connection. Jim mentioned memorable graves he’s enjoyed visiting, including presidential graves, Richard Feynman, Al Capone, and namesake graves like Nestle or Ford, where you realize a famous brand name originally belonged to the real person buried right here.
Standing at a gravesite provides a profound “book end” feeling, the realization that you are occupying the exact same location where they are buried and where everyone who loved that person once gathered for their funeral. He felt this when visiting the grave of Jane Wyman (Ronald Reagan’s first wife), knowing that old Hollywood figures and her family had once stood in that very spot to mourn.
We all know the feeling of connection when you are standing at the gravesite and also what it feels like to continue the search, knowing the burial location still needs to be found. Tanya, Jim’s wife, was a teenager when her mom died. She knew she was buried in Chicago, but didn’t know where. In 2003, Jim reached out to gravers in the Chicago area and asked for help finding her gravesite. Just two days later, member James Seidelman reached out with a strong lead. James contacted his brother John, and in no time, the gravesite was found, photographed and uploaded to her memorial. It was an emotionally charged moment, seeing her gravestone for the first time. Twenty years later, because of the kindness of community members locating her grave, they could pay their respects in person!
It was a lot of fun talking to Jim and hearing about the beginnings of the site! So fun in fact, that we couldn’t resist recreating his profile photo with his question mark headstone and headed over to Salt Lake City Cemetery. It took us a bit, but we think we found the right spot!
When Ancestry acquired Find a Grave in 2013, Jim helped with the transition and worked with teams in the San Fransisco and Lehi office. Since then, the Find a Grave team has redesigned the site and apps and added new features and options to help members better collaborate in this massive undertaking.
It’s astounding what the community has accomplished so far. But, even more astounding is knowing what a difference your work and the site’s reach is making in the lives of others. We’ll be focusing on more of those stories in upcoming posts.
A huge thank you to Jim for creating, developing, and running Find a Grave for all those years! What started with Jim posting about famous graves online, quickly evolved into a thriving altruistic community willing to help each other, volunteer to photograph and GPS graves, suggest edits, and work together towards the mission of recording and documenting gravesites everywhere. Through Find a Grave and the efforts of the Find a Grave community for over 30 years, anyone worldwide can discover more and connect. Find a Grave bridges the gap between the living and those who have passed, proving that even a project started by a self-proclaimed introvert can end up connecting the entire world.
In Jim’s words, “Grave on!”
Thank you Jim for putting our notes, photos and research together so nicely. I wish my grandmother was alive to see it! She would have been amazed! She spent so much time traveling across the country and driving to cemeteries, libraries and churches to track down records. Find a Grave gave us our ancestors right at our home desks! Thank you!
I like the ticker. Do you have a sound recording of it?
Find a grave is the best genealogy site in the entire world. I have found mountains of information on my ancestors through this site. I hope it lives on forever and keeps on growing. Thank you so much for being there for us
What a great story! I have found a lot of ancestors from Jim’s Find a Grave Site. Many times I could visit their graves while traveling to certain areas. I get a certain feeling of satisfaction knowing I could pay respect to them. This has helped me many, many times. Thank You!
Being a Find-a-Grave photo volunteer really fulfills my retirement days. The peaceful surroundings and “thrill of the hunt” to find a burial site is very relaxing and rewarding. Often I will be in a certain cemetery for 6-8 hours fulfilling requests. Then when I come home I’ll spend hours after dinner, going down rabbit holes to link the additional people buried in the plots. Many times I have received comments from the requestors saying that my additional efforts have expanded their family tree. They now have new ancestors they never knew even existed.
Thank you for creating this site so many years ago. Such a wonderful gift you have created for us “gravers” and the genealogists of the world.
Great to see your current photo, old friend! I remember those early days fondly. I hope you are well. 30 years have flown by in the blink of an eye!
I was one of the mail in people…Jim congratulated me on finally getting a scanner, so I could upload the photos myself!
Fab. Thanks, Jim.
Hey Jim good to see your thriving on. I’m one of those 1st contributors along with the Find A Death, Hollywood Underground and Graves R Us crowd. Jim use to come to LA for gathers and dinner nights. We miss you buddy. But so proud of what you’ve done and the millions who have found they’re family members. My late mother Mama T. Loved it for her geneology stuff. Thank you again and as always. Grave on!
The ability to connect family burials around the world is what makes this website so rewarding.
In my own family all buried in the USA, it allows other family members to see photos of people
they never met.m It makes family stories come to life. Thanks to all who helped create this website.
Bill Schultz
You have inadvertently given me the best retirement gift ever with Find A Grave. Thank you for keeping me busy and vertical during many of my waking hours now!
Bill Bloom
Thank you Jim for developing this site. I’ve done genealogical research since high school in the 1960’s. Researchers would connect through letters and plan a trip to the cemetery, take a photo, develop and mail the photos. I became a graver a few years back and spend one morning a week at my local cemetery. Thank you!
As an introvert myself and starting genealogy in 1996, I changed my view of cemeteries as peaceful places to visit. Thank you for this website and great insight into how helpful it can be.
I’ve been a member and contributor for over 25 years. I remember sending actual photos via mail. When I came across find a grave I realized there was a whole community of people like myself who loved cemeteries. It is fulfilling to take grave photos for loved ones. Thank you!
Thanks, Jim, for creating FindAGrave! (And thanks for signing off on letting me use FindAGrave as my college senior community volunteer project for my degree from Eckerd College back in 2005!) I’ve contributed to FindAGrave almost every single day since!
Many of my friends that don’t live in my area any more appreciate that they can see the final
Resting place of there loved one again
What can you do when an ancestors grave you found some years ago has now gone with someone else now using the grave site in a different name?
Site has changed over the years. Older now and not so active. I still miss AJ.
Greatest website ever! Preserving the headstones by taking photos is very important! Thank you Jim!
I love this site. My father used to take me round graveyards as a child and thus I’ve always found them interesting. We lived in Kenya at the time and he was in charge of going to crash sites to determine why the car accident happened. One was of a four year old girl and he took me to see her grave. We then lived in New Zealand and I remember walking round the gravesite of those killed in the Maori Wars. Latterly I’ve lived near Edinburgh in Dunfermline where Andrew Carnegie was born and where Robert the Bruce is buried. One of the most interesting graveyards I’ve visited is the Dean Cemetery in Edinburgh where past governors of the “colonies” are buried and it makes for fascinating reading. Thank you Jim for bringing all this together.
When I am connecting individuals to their families of Find a Grave, I feel a sense of relief that the families are connected again.
Thanks Jim!
I met so many nice people over the years. We had a great time in “The Lounge”. And we even had a few gatherings and explored cemeteries together, I still have my Find a Grave pin that Jim donated to one of our gatherings.
I’ll forever be grateful to Jim for creating Find a Grave, having thought I must be the only such nerd in the world. I began using Find a Grave 25 years and 6 mos ago. I’m sure glad I did!
I have to thank you for this site. My Dad tried finding his missing brother to no avail. I finally found his listing on Find A Grave. Unfortunately he was no longer with us. My Dad passed on Feb. 24th 2000. The listing on my uncle’s post was on Feb. 26th, 2000. Thank you for adding regular people on your site.
One of my favorite features was “posthumous reunions.” Sadly those have been neglected for quite some time but I keep hoping at some point the find a grave staff will bring it back to life.
I am a researcher by trade, retired librarian, and I love finding newspaper articles , wedding announcements, etc along with photos in my research and then connecting them to a specific FG, my favorite one is a civil war daguerreotype I had with a letter tucked behind it, I was able to connect it and upload a photo of these historic items to Richard H Bakeman’s FG!
What a wonderful website. Like most people, I have happily spent many more productive hours entering data, photos and linking families. Productive hours hoping to help people find their roots. Standing at each headstone documenting data and taking a photo and say a little prayer was always a peaceful, rewarding moment. I have felt honor crossing their paths. I recommend this pasttime to everyone. Thanks to Jim for starting a website that brings people together. GRAVE ON!!!
I manage 18 memorials (mostly of family) and I love this site! I have referenced Find A Grave in all of my printed family histories! I am thinking about making (free online) QR codes to attach to the graves of my various family cemeteries so family and visitors to scan & it will take them directly to the Find A Grave page for that cemetary/plot, or person.
Love the site, have contributed and have used it in my genealogy work. Thanks for creating and guiding the site into what it is today.
Well done!— Thank you for the pictures and the sound tracks, too!— that was especialy a treat to hear part of the interview– we look forward to hearing more ofthe interview as time allows. SIncerely, “Mack” Baxter
Find A Grave is a source of great information. However, it is unfortunate that some submitters enter data based on family lore or wishful thinking rather than original records. That results in some adding ancestors that do not belong to the family.
I love FindaGrave and believe in it. I also believe that it’s an opportunity to get to know those buried in those graves. Until someone takes the time to put a story on their memorial, they are just a name on a stone. Everyone has had a story and Finadagrave has made it possible to learn that story. For that I am very grateful. Thank you for this story, it makes my contributes to Findagrave even more valuable. (Remember the poem, The Dash, its who we are)
Love this website and have entered so many of my family members. The only thing I wish is that some people will put in the information that the funeral home has listed saying obit to following but they never go back to enter the obit information. Please people please go back and enter it so there is as much about the deceased person that the family has offered.
As a genealogy hobbyist most of my life. FindAGrave is a godsend. Thank you so much. I am a contributor as well. Knowing our departed will not be forgotten.
I remember finding the findagrave site way back in its beginnings. I was intrigued and wanted to add to it. My dad used to always drive by Dutch Schultz’s (Flegenheimer) grave on the way to my grandparents graves in Gate of Heaven cemetery. I had a photo I took and submitted it. I remember how excited I was when I heard from Jim Tipton that he was going to post it.
Very useful site for genealogy, memoirs, biographies et al. Sometimes it’s the only source!
As a life long tapophile, I was thrilled when your site came to my attention in the late 90’s. I was a long haul trucker, so I was able to get to some cemeteries I thought I’d never see. I carried my bicycle on the rig. When I came off the road in 2000, I landed a dream job: Sexton of a cemetery in northern New England. A most rewarding position not only in the restoration, documentation, mapping of the 10 acre property; but the most fulfilling aspect was assisting the families in their greatest time of need with utmost compassion, professionalism and providing an often unseen service when these folks needed it the most! Many times I handled the arrangements that some families couldn’t afford through the local funeral homes. The entire small town was so thankful that I turned a neglected yard into a pristine memorial park, as many ancestors were interred there. As an aside, I was compensated very well for a dream job! I use the site daily after 20+ years, thank you for your dedication and excellence.
As the historian of my family all these since around 2007, I don’t know what I’d do without Find A Grave. I’ve also been able to contribute over the years. It’s such a valuable website for all who are searching for loved ones. Thank you.
Jim – I can’t tell you how much Find A Grave has meant to me and my family history research. As a member since 2007, I always like to tell people “I’m not on Facebook, but I’m on Find A Grave”. They give me the strangest looks!!
Thank you Jim! My G-grandfather’s 1st cousin, Weldon Smith, went to China as a missionary. He and his wife adopted 3 Chinese daughters. In 1949 all westerners were forced to leave. The daughters were forced to stay. The family lost track of Weldon. Sixty five years later I found Weldon’s descendants in China and met them through miracles. I also found his and his wife’s burial places, but no pictures of their stone. I put in a request and the sweetest graver fulfilled it. When I showed the memorial page to his 65 year old grandson in China he broke down crying. He never knew when or where his grandparents died. To see their burial place was truly a blessing even from thousands of miles away. What a gift you have given to the world. God bless you and thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
Teresa Davis
Thank you, Jim. I did an inventory of five cemeteries in our township and re-typed the county cemeteries to make them easier to read. they had been mimeographed and laid on top which bled through, making them difficult to read. I gave a copy to a fellow researcher from Memphis who was kind enough to enter them online. Thanks to Find-A-Grave, I have located the graves of several ancestors, along with pictures of their markers. I have done family history research since 1966 (60 years!!!). Cemeteries were my first stop.
I have used this to find relatives and used it to take photos of requested gravesites. I’m drawn to the histories of people.
I live on the North Fork of Long Island, New York and I have been able to document graves in most of the cemeteries here. Now that I am retired, I spend most of my time on the computer in FindAGrave, maintaining memorials and answering questions. My biggest thrill was being recognized in a cemetery one day, and asked to come take a photo of a new gravestone. I enjoy helping people to use the site and manage their own memorials. I get such lovely messages from other Gravers in our growing community. Happy 30th, FindAGrave. Thank you, Jim Tipton.
Jim, thanks for your insite and working for the betterment of others. I have enjoyed using the site and adding to it over the years. I have been “chasing dead people” for over 50 years now and the site has been very helpful in my research. I have much more information now because of Find a a Grave. Now I am going to search for one of those pins.
Thank you Jim Tipton for your insight and energy to create finds gave! Collecting genealogy information in my family tree is not complete without the memorial headstone. The powerful work of gravers have given me thousands of pictures of family members in my genealogy collection. As a hobby, I would be lost without Find a Grave and ancestry.com.
It fun to tell others about Find a Grave!
Fascinating article! Thanks to all who have and will contribute to Find a Grave. It is a vaulable asset to all of us family historians!!
This site has helped historians so much. Thank you.
After historical research (book), Find a Grave connected my subject to his GG Granddaughter in 2009. Being a member I helped find grave sites for others. Thank You Find a Grave.
GREAT work to everyone involved!! Many thanks!!
Through Ancestry . com I have learned my grandchildren have 41 Revolutionary war soldiers in their history. This sounds like a brag on them. But Find-A-Grave was the source I was able to use to prove it true. When I went to questioning what I found there, as I did for Nathan Maine, my revolutionary war, I was able to ask for and find his memorial marker in the cemetery that his grandson owned. PROOF! It had a flag and memorial emblem of remembrance is not recognized by DSAR because the Fisher GAR who knew him personally before he passed in 1855 had placed it on his grave!
Find A Grave is an excellent place for families to remember and honor their loved ones. It is an excellent source of history that I discovered when I was researching the women who helped George Papanicolaou, MD, PhD develop the Pap Test for cervical cancer screening!