In her presentation at the winter edition of THE Genealogy Show I was convinced by Marian Burk Wood to use FindaGrave as cousin bait. I had mentioned FindaGrave as a source of cousin bait in my presentation at that event but I hadn't fully explored the opportunities it could provide to reel in cousins. I'm not going to spill the beans on what Marian said; you'll have to find her presentation somewhere or invite her to talk to your group.
Prior to this I had only dabbled in FindaGrave managing my parents' memorials and adding a few odd facts to other memorials. I had previously uploaded all grave photos to BillionGraves and not to FindaGrave; I have reviewed that practice. Depending on time constraints I usually take photos of some neighbouring headstones when visiting family plots.
Since being enlightened by Marian I am adding information and photographs to close relatives' profiles and adding profiles for those missing from the FindaGrave database. Thanks to Marian for her informative presentation and to those volunteers who have willingly handed over management of family memorials to me.
I am not trying to build up a huge collection of memorials to manage; I have no time for that. I just want to care for memorials of close family members especially those aunts and uncles with no issue.
I will continue to add value to the memorials of cousins I encounter in my meandering on the site. I'm now leaving plenty of footprints for others to find.
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| I had fun linking up my Dad's parents and siblings |
6 comments:
This is really interesting Jill, and something I hadn't thought of. Like you, I've been uploading to Billion Graves. I always check for my people on Findagrave but had never thought of using it as cousin bait. Time to rethink.
Yes, I saw that presentation too and have since had some family memorials handed over to me where I have also added some cousin bait thanks to Marian’s tips. By taking control we can make sure the data is accurate.
Thanks so much, Jill, for the lovely compliments! I'm really glad you're enjoying linking ancestors and adding bios as cousin bait. This aspect of genealogy certainly accentuates the positive ;)
Thanks to you Marian I now have control of my parents and grandparents memorials and those of a few other childless relatives.
Profile updated as well.
I've been busily making connections on Find-a-grave as well. More importantly I've got a gross error sorted out.
Woohoo. I am using it for my Surname study - adding extra info to FindaGrave and killing off and burying people in my database (I feel a blog post coming on ).
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