Findagrave.com

URL	www.findagrave.com
Commercial?	Yes
Type of site	Online database
Registration	Optional
Available language(s)	English
Owner	Jim Tipton
Created by	Jim Tipton
Launched	1995 (1995)
Current status	Active

Find A Grave is a for-profit website providing access and input to an online database of cemetery records.

Contents 1 History 2 Content and features 3 See also 4 References 5 Further reading 6 External links

[edit] History

According to the founder, Salt Lake City resident Jim Tipton,^[1] the website was developed in 1995 to address the lack of any existing site that catered to his hobby of visiting the graves of celebrities. After some time, an online forum was created on the site.^[2] As of October 2009, the site states that it hosts 38 million records.^[3]

[edit] Content and features

The website contains listings of cemeteries and graves from all around the world. American cemeteries are organized by state and county, and many cemetery records contain Google Maps (with GPS coordinates supplied by contributors and the U.S. Geological Survey) and photographs of the cemeteries. Individual grave records contain some or all of the following data fields: dates and places of birth and death, biographical information, cemetery and plot information, photographs (grave marker, the individual, etc.), and contributor information.^[4]

Members are allowed to place on-line memorials for relatives and friends for no cost and may link a record to the records of spouses and parents for genealogical purposes. Users receive editing privileges over the memorials. Members may also request photos of graves which Find A Grave volunteers can fulfill.

[edit] See also

• Poets' Graves
• Tombstone tourist

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Colker, David, Web site answers grave concerns about stars, Los Angeles Times, 26 August 1997
• Johnstone, Nick, Why I love ... findagrave.com, The Guardian, 14 July 2004
• Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service, Web site attracts millions of grave-seekers, The Orlando Sentinel, 12 July 2001
• Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service, Find VIPs (and others) who R.I.P. through online cemetery, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 1 August 2005

[edit] External links

• Official website