Free training · The Research Method · Beginner · 15 min
Find the Grave, Find the Family
Find a Grave is free, and most people use a fraction of it. Turn a single headstone into a whole family line.
Free Find a Grave training from Stuck in the Branches: how to search by surname and place, read a memorial, follow the family links back a generation, and check what you find against real records.
What you will learn
- Search Find a Grave by surname and place instead of full name, which is what finds the hard ones.
- Read a memorial page for the dates, the bio notes and the cemetery plot.
- Follow linked parents, spouses and children to walk back a generation at a time.
- Use neighbouring graves to spot relatives, including married daughters.
- Treat a volunteer entry as a clue and confirm it against a real record.
The full written guide
Chapter 1. Welcome
Turning a single headstone into a whole family line.
Find the Grave, Find the Family.
Welcome to Stuck in the Branches. Find a Grave is one of the most useful free sites in genealogy, and most people only ever use a fraction of it. In this guide, we will take a single headstone and turn it into a whole family line.
Chapter 2. What it is, and how to search it
What Find a Grave holds, who to start with, and the search that actually works.
What Find a Grave actually is.
Find a Grave is a free index of graves, built almost entirely by volunteers who walk cemeteries and photograph the markers. Each memorial holds a name, birth and death years, the cemetery, and very often a photo of the stone itself. Searching costs nothing, and a free account lets you contribute.
Start with one person you know died.
Start with one person you are confident has died, ideally a great grandparent. Write down the surname, the death year, and the state. Working one person at a time is what keeps this from becoming overwhelming.
Search by surname and place, not full name.
Here is the trick most people get wrong. Search by surname and place, not by full name. Carvers used nicknames and initials, so a first name can hide the very match you are looking for. Add the county or state instead, and widen the year range by a few years on either side. If a search finds nothing, remove information rather than adding more.
Chapter 3. Read the memorial, follow the family
Read a memorial like a document, then walk the family links and the neighbouring graves.
Read the memorial like a document.
When you open a memorial, read it like a document. Check the carved dates against anything you already hold. Read the volunteer's notes, which very often quote the obituary word for word. And make a note of the cemetery name and the plot, if one is recorded.
The family links are the real prize.
Now the part that matters most. Linked parents, spouses and children sit right there on the memorial page, and following those links walks you back a generation at a time. A linked spouse will often hand you a maiden name you did not have.
Look at who is buried nearby.
Look at who is buried nearby. Families bought plots together, so the neighbours are frequently relatives. Browse the cemetery listing for the same surname, and pay attention to an unexpected surname right next door. That is very often a married daughter.
Chapter 4. Check it against real records
Treat a volunteer entry as a clue, then take that clue back to the records.
Treat every entry as a clue, not a fact.
Treat every entry as a clue, not a fact. Volunteers are generous, and volunteers are human. Dates get mistyped, worn stones get misread, and a family link is somebody's conclusion rather than evidence. A headstone tells you where to look next. It does not close the question.
Take the clue back to the records.
So take the clue back to the records. A death year and a county point straight at a death certificate. The same pair finds the obituary in a local newspaper. And the burial place tells you which county kept the probate file.
Chapter 5. Ask, and give something back
Photo requests, and the small contributions that keep the site alive.
Photo requests cost you nothing.
If a memorial has no photo, you can ask for one, and it costs you nothing. A volunteer living near that cemetery may go out and take it for you. That is how most of the photographs on the site got there in the first place.
Give something back when you can.
When you can, give something back. Add a memorial for a grave you photographed yourself. Answer a photo request in a cemetery near you. And if you spot an error, correct it politely through the site's own process.
Chapter 6. Wrap up
One stone, one generation.
One stone, one generation.
One stone, one generation. Follow the family links and keep going, and we are here when you get stuck.