A waiting period, please…
It absolutely breaks The Legal Genealogist‘s heart.
Of all the aspects of this bitter pandemic, the one that hurts the most is the inability to properly grieve those we are losing.
We cannot be with them at the end to hold their hands as they slip away.
We cannot fill a church or a chapel or a synagogue or any gathering place with all those who knew them and loved them and want to pay their respects.
We cannot hug those who mourn.
And so, now more than ever, it’s time and past time for Ancestry to exercise its authority over its Find a Grave wing and impose a waiting period between a death and the time a stranger wholly unconnected to the family posts the loss in a public place the family has not chosen.
Yes, it’s happened again. An anguished family member who has dealt with all the blows — a death of a loved one, alone, from this terrible virus, the inability to have a full celebration of the loved one’s life, an abbreviated graveside service all socially distanced — finally surfaced enough to want to choose to memorialize that loved one on Find a Grave.
Only to find that some stranger utterly unknown to the family had already done so. Complete with photo and full obituary lovingly crafted by the family member.
I won’t even mention the copyright violation of posting the obituary in full. It’s the human violation of taking away this one final chance to remember the loved one the way the family wants that is intolerable.
It was intolerable when people started complaining years ago and my friend and colleague Amy Johnson Crow first proposed a brief waiting period to allow the families of the deceased time to choose how to make any memorial they wanted to appear online at the website.1
It was intolerable more than a year ago when this space added its voice to those clamoring for a waiting period.2
But now — in the midst of the worst pandemic in more than 100 years — with 300,000 already dead in the United States alone and one American dying from the virus every minute — now more than ever it’s time for Ancestry to act.
There needs to be a moratorium on non-family-members posting memorials for the recently-deceased on Find a Grave for at least some time to give the families of those involved a chance to deal with a loved one’s death before some stranger spreads the information into a space on the ethernet that the family hadn’t yet occupied.
It can be 90 days as I suggested — others have suggested 30 days, even a couple of weeks3 — but long enough to give the families of the recently deceased time to come to terms with their loss before an utter stranger is allowed to invade their space by adding a memorial to that website.
There is no excuse for not waiting. None.
To those Find a Grave apologists who insist that they wouldn’t mind if some stranger created a memorial for one of their loved ones, let me remind you that this is not about you. You — the stranger to the deceased — have no place in this equation. It won’t hurt you one bit to wait a short time before posting. It is hurting real people to find that their loved ones are being used to rack up posting numbers by a stranger.
Don’t start in with the nonsense about the “families shouldn’t allow the death to be announced if they don’t want us to post it on Find a Grave.” That’s so tone-deaf to the reality of human loss and suffering that I can’t even.
Don’t repeat the ridiculous theme that “families shouldn’t make the obit public if they don’t want it copied on Find a Grave.” Crafting that obit — today — is one of the few things a family can do in this horrible time to share their grief with loved ones and friends. That doesn’t make the death a public event, for strangers to “get credit” for posting.
And don’t — just don’t — with the whole “the memorial can be transferred” shtick. It’s the body blow of finding that someone else has gotten involved in the family’s loss at all that should be avoided as a simple human courtesy — and it can be, easily and simply, by nothing more than imposing a brief waiting period.
This is an ethical imperative.
It’s a matter of common decency.
Ancestry, it’s time.
Now more than ever.
Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “Now more than ever,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 15 Dec 2020).
SOURCES
- See Amy Johnson Crow, “How FindAGrave Could – and Should – Be Made Better,” Amyjohnsoncrow.com, posted 21 Oct 2016 (https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/ : accessed 15 Dec 2020). ↩
- See Judy G. Russell, “A modest proposal,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 5 Aug 2019 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 15 Dec 2020). Also, “Hey, Find a Grave…,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 7 Oct 2019. ↩
- See Crow, “How FindAGrave Could – and Should – Be Made Better.” ↩
I could not agree more. The same thing happened when my grandfather passed five years ago and when my father passed last year. Fortunately they didn’t copy and paste the obituaries and they were transferred when I asked, but I still found the whole thing galling. Particularly because both memorials went up before their funerals.
Standing up in support!
This one makes me grind my teeth: “Well they published an obituary in the paper, on Legacy, at the funeral home site, so I don’t know why I can’t blah, blah, blah…”. The point is “they” are the family, you are not. It is their family member, not your commodity.
Thank you so much for bringing attention to this issue! I lost my mom three years ago when I was 19. I am a frequent researcher on find a grave so I had hoped to add her memorial myself when I was ready. Only about three months after her death I found that a stranger had already added a memorial- using the photos I had chosen, and the obituary that I myself had written. Seeing this post brought back how much it hurt me then and still does now. When I emailed her to ask for a transfer, I got back an FYI on how to better request future transfers! It still bothers me that someone else’s name is on the memorial and not mine.
I truly hope that the community moves towards a more empathetic approach towards family members and recent deaths.
AMEN!!!!
The pain… on top of the overwhelming grief…
Such a violation.
This has been a year with so much loss. My heart is breaking now for a dear friend who died last week. Why are these posters not capable of a little bit of empathy for the family and allow them to share the words and images they have carefully and lovingly chosen. Ancestry definitely needs to impose a waiting period, and I’ve let them know my thoughts as well.
Ancestry, and “helpful” Find A Grave posters: PLEASE shut up and let us grieve before we have to put our grief in print for the world to see.
The public should stay out of the bereaved business for at least one year. I can think of no rational reason why the public should insert themselves any earlier than that. For what ?
I’d settle for shorter than that — but having no time limit at all is just unacceptable.
agreed
What is the motivation on the other end of this to rush to post about a stranger’s death? Is there really that much of a competitive nature in this? Is there something in this for them to post these memorials first?
Bragging rights is the only thing I can see.
Thank you.
I had a dear friend, a former coworker, pass away from cancer. She was being laid to rest in a family cemetery that’s off of the beaten path. I thought to use Find-a-Grave to confirm directions, and it was quite a shock to find that she was already listed there. Some people have no tact or compassion.
If they did away with listing numbers of entries created, as if it’s some sort of trophy, would help to cull such behavior.
Again, thank you.
I think doing away from the number of listings is the best way to stop this practice. If they can no longer display the number of their “trophies”, there would be no reason to make sure they post every one they can.
I’m a little less cynical and think that many of these hasty posters don’t want to intentionally hurt anyone and believe they’re just doing a service. But I wholeheartedly agree that there should be a time limit. What bothers me is the debate here has always centered on the affront to FindAGrave contributors whose loved ones have recently passed who want to (and should) be the ones to create a memorial. But there are a lot of people who don’t even know FindAGrave exists, much less contribute to it. I’ve introduced it to a couple people (non-genealogists) who were puzzled and slightly turned off by it. So I agree with Susan. I can’t even imagine how many people would be surprised by knowing a stranger has created a memorial for their recently deceased family member on a site they didn’t even know about.
Thank you for posting this. I never understood why people are in such a rush to create memorials for non-family. Maybe they feel they are doing some kind of service to the genealogy community. Unless it is to brag about how many memorials they created, as you suggested in a previous comment. What may be equally as bad is when a family member contacts the creator of a memorial, asks them to transfer management of the memorial to the family member and getting no response. I too support implementing a delay in creating Find A Grave memorials by non-family members.
I absolutely agree. The lack of empathy is appalling, but not surprising these days. There is NO excuse.
Absolutely, you hit it spot on, and thank you. I wondered about that, it would be different if there was no family to be found, then and only then, “maybe”. Is someone keeping score somewhere? If not then there should be
100% agree. When my grandmother passed earlier this year, I felt a rush to go and create her FindAGrave profile, only to find someone had pilfered the info from grandpa’s headstone and created a “pre-need” profile “at the request of family”. Knowing my grandma’s gravestone had been memorialized before it even was a gravestone was like a double punch in the stomach — first, because I couldn’t properly grieve before attending to her online memorial, and second, because it was created before she’d actually died.
Yes!
I believe its long overdue to remove submitters posting numbers. This isn’t a warped contest. It is honoring peoples lives ffs. And after someone reaches 50 contributions they should be given a poster’s ID number and their name should no longer be displayed either. Then people can immediately identify bulk posters from family members. Get the competition out of this process completely.
I realize my thoughts won’t be popular here but here it goes anyway.
I think those who are upset and want this waiting period are mostly genealogist which is a bit surprising to me. I’m always shocked when researchers want to set more and more limits yet they don’t want them when it comes to getting their documents etc.“
Perhaps it might help you better understand the issue if you began by asking yourself this question: where is the harm in waiting 30-90 days before posting this information on a site NOT chosen by the family?
But, it’s not mostly genealogists. I’ve many friends who have been deeply upset that their own photos of their loved ones as well as lovingly crafted obituaries have been posted without their knowledge or consent.
I echo those who have suggested removing the counts of memorials for contributors.
Bravo bravo bravo Agree.
What I am thankful for … is this blog. Here is where I had learned earlier about those waiting ravens who swoop in to post entries at findagrave as soon as an obit appears.
So I made Mom’s findagrave entry, myself, when I most definitely was not ready to do so.
Mom’s first symptoms appeared just 48 hours before she passed, so there had been little time to think of all that needed to be done. But I knew one thing I had to do, that Sunday morning this past September.
I posted the entry for my mother’s death, within six hours after the midnight phone call. I’d spent Saturday afternoon preparing – signing up for a findagrave account, checking that I’d be able to make the post when it was time. I’d already written an obit – did that years ago, updated it and had the family approve it this spring when the virus started attacking nursing homes. But feeling I had to create the findagrave account and entry – that was rough, at a time when I was emotionally overwhelmed.
I fully support the notion that Findagrave should require a waiting period – perhaps two weeks – before ANY entry may be made for a recently deceased individual.
I am deeply sorry for your loss and especially that you had to work creating a memorial into the multitude of of things to do following the loss of a loved one.
I agree on 90 days before posting a memorial.
Thank you, Judy. @Ancestry — are you listening?
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Sign my name on the petition, hand me a sign to wave. I completely agree.
I quite agree. It is shocking the rush some people are in – presumably to bump up the graves they have memorialised. I had had some chap demanding that I post my 189,000 images on Find a Grave immediately. I responded by inviting him to ‘two words, last word off!’
Absolutely! This happened when my mother passed away nearly four years ago. Being the genealogist of the family, I managed to put up the first version of her memorial the next day. Even that wasn’t fast enough! The obituary hadn’t even been written yet and they still had her death date and location. Where they got this information is beyond me. I sent the person who created this memorial a message, asking them to take it down. Their response? “Actually, mine was created first.” Are you kidding me?!?!?! They did delete their version of the memorial but it had me fuming!
Yes, please address again the copyright violation of posting a full obituary, or refer me to a previous post that discusses it. Someone at my local cemetery makes memorials by copying and pasting the obituary and photo from the funeral home or newspaper as soon as it is published, and usually before there even is a grave. I’ve created hurry up memorials upon the deaths of my parents, my uncle and a close family friend to get ahead of this person only to have them add the obituary photos. Find A Grave did remove the photos at my request but did not address the problem of whole obituary posting and doubt they ever will as it’s been going on for years. I would appreciate a source to show this person if the opportunity arises. They seem not to know or care about copyright violations.
Whole heartedly agree. I’d like to add, double spouse tombstones.
FindAGrave has listings for the still Living Spouse.
In a few cases I’ve seen the initial death was more than 30yrs ago, the spouse is living. This is extremely upsetting to families and can be easily misinterpreted (& erroneously added as a death to online trees).
I have been on both sides of this situation so I do understand why people are feeling hurt. Losing family hurts and we want to mourn in our own way and time. But communications including newspapers have changed in the last 30 years and we have to deal with that. Some newspapers now charge to see obits and funeral homes no longer post simple notice of deaths. Friends post information not only on their FB pages but community & school ones as well. Death information travels and not just on Find a Grave.
Rethink how you want a death in your family communicated. Instruct your funeral home not to publish grave information and list only adults in the obit. Keep the obit to no more than four paragraphs with the details about how Mom met Dad revealed at the funeral service not the obit. Remember what goes in that obit is seen by the World Wide Web for a very long time and not just on Find a Grave.
I was unaware of this until just now! I lost my grandmother in April (not to Covid) but because of the pandemic, we have not been able to place her remains in the mausoleum she arranged for her and my grandfather a few years ago. She is currently with him and we’re unsure if she will ultimately be laid to rest there, as my grandfather is suggesting other burial arrangements in the new state he lives in (he moved shortly after her passing). I’m still not 100% sure how to feel about this but I do understand that our loved ones are not just another statistic for a website. At the very least, there is potential misinformation being created with these listings with final resting places. Because of the pandemic climate, it is uncertain where someone’s remains will finally be placed.
I would agree with this suggestion. It could be implemented as a prompt that appears based on the date of death, to confirm you are a family member before continuing and explaining why. Something of an honor system approach.
I am also involved in helping support a local pioneer cemetery in Downers Grove, Illinois. While there have have been no burials there in decades, we do try to insure the information in FindAGrave is accurate. I suspect people being entered in FindAGrave by non-family members are being added as a matter of well intent to insure an accurate accounting of the headstones in their cemetery of choice and helping distant family members.
You might find it interesting to look at the bio page of people that added headstones. From the ones I looked at, they clearly feel they are doing good work in the same vein as a transcriber would.
My parents were added by 2 different people. My dad was added 4 years after he died in 2005. My mom’s was added 2 days after she passed in 2010 based on an obit. I thought it was odd, but I personally did not mind. Her obit was cut and pasted from the local paper. I don’t do that because it is illegal, but also lack the will and capacity to police other people’s work.
Count me in favor of the waiting period! When my mother-in-law passed away in 2018, we decided to have two services for her for various reasons. A stranger posted on Find-A-Grave between the two dates and caused much confusion since she had yet to be interred. The officious interloper also used a name that was only part of her name used by family.
I totally disagree with you on this. And it did happen to me. It isn’t hypothetical. My husband died in 2011 and though I had been an active member of Find A Grave it didn’t occur to me until a week later. And I did have the memorial transferred afterward. And I thanked the creator because had I not been a FAG member I doubt that the memorial would have been created if it hadn’t been for this member. Many of the memorials wouldn’t be. And I think that it is just awful that you are disparaging the volunteers who have been doing this for years. They deserve our thanks not our anger. If a waiting period is imposed many memorials will never be created. Volunteers are not going to “collect” obits in order to add them after a grieving period. I respect your legal opinion but this is personal and I believe wrong. Unfortunately, because of your name it will carry weight, and if instituted will mean far fewer memorials for genealogists of the future!
I have never understood the argument that a short wait out of courtesy and common human decency will send all the Find A Grave volunteers into retirement. If they really truly would never do another entry because they had to delay for 30 days to allow a family to grieve in its own way, maybe they should find another hobby to begin with.
Thank you –
@Barbara Brann, I couldn’t agree with you more. And it “happened” just last week to me. For the past 15 years, a second cousin and I have been in sporadic contact although neither of us were in contact with the other’s siblings. We live about 500 miles apart. He had some health issues and had entered a nursing home this fall. Last Sunday, I discovered his Find A Grave memorial, created 2 days after his death. I am deeply grateful to the member who created it. It doesn’t matter at all why the person created it or if that person is a stanger. The memorial fulfills the purpose of Find A Grave (of which so many genealogy users lose sight).
Like you, I know that a waiting period would cause fewer memorials to be created. If such a waiting period was imposed, my cousin’s would not have been made.
You can’t be sure if waiting a few days would have kept that memorial from being made — and you’re focusing on YOU. YOUR desires, YOUR needs. Try focusing on the many many immediate family members (much closer than “second cousin in sporadic contact”) who have spoken out repeatedly saying this is something they do not want. What makes your desires outweigh theirs?
Thank you, Judy. This happened when my mom passed away in 2017. I was shocked to find the obit I created SIX DAYS after she died and before we’d held the memorial service. Someone else has added a very poor shot of the urn holding her cremains. These folks may have done this with the best of intentions but they are not related to our family. I still haven’t decided whether to ask to have it transferred yet, along with my father’s. Not as shocking as it was created 32 years after his death. However the creator was “Graves” and entry is being maintained by “Crypt Tonight?” At least have the decency to use your own name, not some creepy euphemism.