Hello "Find A Grave" fans.

**** If you're a "Find A Grave Volunteer" who no longer wishes to manage your memorial listings, please TRANSFER YOUR MEMORIALS TO ME. I'm a disabled veteran and a widow with plenty of time, and I'd be honored to protect and maintain the memorials for you. "Each Memorial is a Monument" to those who have passed before us, and they deserve to be remembered, protected, and honored for the generations who come after. Thank you ****

Here's how I manage "my" Find A Grave Memorials:

(1) FLOWERS: Per Find A Grave policy, please do NOT use the "Flowers Comment Section" to add BIO or Obituary information to the Memorial. "Flowers" is not where that information belongs, and it will eventually be pushed off the 1st page of the Memorial as additional "Flower Tributes" are added. Just send me an EDIT request via the "CONTACT MANAGER" link on the "SUGGEST EDITS" page and I will add the information to the BIO Section. Comments that Violate this policy will be referred to Find A Grave for immediate removal... so don't waste your energy. Send your "BIO Notes" the correct way!!

(2) PHOTOS: *Do Not* under any circumstances, do the following:

(a) Do Not attach a photocopy of a newspaper or online "Obituary or Article" UNLESS you also include:

- the name of the newspaper or funeral home that wrote it / published it,

- the full-date and the city & state where the Obituary was published.

*** Note: "Photocopies" of newspaper obituaries, articles and announcements are almost all Copyright Protected, which means you cannot, by law, make a photocopy UNLESS you also include the "Source Information" that credits the Newspaper Company that wrote and published the information. ALL VIOLATIONS of this policy will be escalated to "Find A Grave" for removal and possible disciplinary action that they see fit.

(b) Do Not attach photos of the deceased person UNLESS:

- it includes the deceased person's name,

- points out the deceased person in group photos,

- includes the date or year the photo was taken,

(c) Do Not attach photos of supporting documents, i.e., death certificates, divorce papers, published biographies, family tree histories, etc. UNLESS they include:

- the date the document was created, published, and/or signed,

- the name of the published book or website it came from,

- the name of the author who wrote it,

- the name of the court, business, or government agency it came from.

(d) Do Not attach copies of headstone photos taken by other Find A Grave Members UNLESS you obtain the photographers permission, and provide the following:

- the Name and Member ID # of the person who originally took the photo,

- a note claiming you obtained "Permission" from the photographer to re-post their photo and the date the permission was obtained,

- the date the photo was "Originally Added" to Find A Grave by the Photographer.

Example: "Permission obtained July 15, 2022, from JerseyGirl # 46739416, who originally added this photo to Find A Grave on May 6, 2009."

*ANY PHOTO* that violates this policy will be forwarded to the "Find A Grave Photo Support Department" for removal.

(3) TRANSFERS: I will transfer ANY memorial to you, regardless of your relationship or friendship to the deceased, UNLESS I am a family member of the decedent. Please submit your "Transfer Request" via the "CONTACT MANAGER" link on the "SUGGEST EDITS" page. There is no need to tell me your relationship to the deceased because I will only be checking "MY" relationship to the person.

(4) REGARDING ALL EDIT REQUESTS: If I have questions about your edit request, but have no way to contact you, i.e., your Find A Grave messages are turned off / blocked and/or your personal email address is not provided, I will DECLINE your request if I can't find the answer from my own research.

(5) EDIT TIMEFRAME: Unless my computer has exploded, I'm in the hospital, I'm in a full body cast, I've been captured by little green men from Mars, or I'm dead, in most cases I will NOT make you wait 21 days for the Find A Grave system to "Auto-Approve" your edit request. That's what lazy people do. I personally handle all edits, usually within 7 days. Before I complete your edit request, I will research the information to make sure it's complete and correct. I may ask you to attach a photo of your supporting documentation, (i.e., birth records, death certificates, marriage records, etc.). Once I approve your edit request you can delete the supporting documentation photo(s) from the "Photos" page.

(6) DECEASED PERSON's NAME: Most people who search "Find A Grave" are looking for family members and loved ones. Very few people come to Find A Grave just to look at headstone photos belonging to people they don't know and/or are not related to. Those who are researching their "Family Tree" almost always search Find A Grave by the deceased person's "Legal Name" given to them at birth or after a marriage. Why? Because the person searching has no idea "what name" was engraved on the deceased person's headstone or grave marker... AND... they have no idea "what name" was used on a Find A Grave memorial. Example (and a true story): when searching for a person named at birth as "Laura Jane Evans," whose name became "Laura Jane (Evans) Smith" after her marriage, those are the names people will use to search Find A Grave. But... her memorial will never be found because the name engraved on her grave marker, and used on her Find A Grave memorial, was "Jane E. Smith." Apparently, as an adult, instead of using her first name, Laura went by her middle name, Jane. As her middle initial, she used the letter E., the first-letter of her maiden name. ---- When I set up Find A Grave memorials, I use the deceased person's full legal name and known nickname, at the time of their death, regardless of what is engraved on their headstone. Names used on Census Reports, Death Certificates, Marriage Licenses, and Obituaries are NOT considered concrete "Name-Evidence." However, Social Security records, Military documents, Lawsuits, Real Estate contracts, Divorces, and Last Wills are often the most accurate, but not always. ** NOTE: If the name and/or spelling on the headstone or grave marker is different than the person's "legal name" at the time of their death, I use the "Legal Name in the Name Field" so it can be found in a Find A Grave "search" and then I note the name-engraving details in the "Inscription Field" which only covers the information "engraved" on the headstone or grave marker. I may also go into more depth in the BIO section. The point of Find A Grave is to locate a person's grave. If you can't find their grave because of the Name that was used on their memorial, then what's the point of looking at Find A Grave at all, right?

(7) BIO SECTION: BIO is an abbreviation of the word "BIOGRAPHY" which is a written "HISTORY" of a PERSON'S life. It covers everything from:

(a) information about parents (if the parents don't have their own Find A Grave memorials),

(b) details about the person's birth (twin sibling, place of birth, etc.),

(c) information about their education (quit in 3rd grade, went to college, etc.),

(d) details about marriages (# of times, who they married, date and place of each marriage, etc.),

(e) details about careers (farmer, scientist, discoveries, inventions, etc.),

(f) military service (date enlisted and discharged, wars fought, medals or ribbons awarded, etc.),

(g) details about traveling and/or immigrating to other countries,

(h) and details about their death (cause of death, accidental, murdered, suicide, handwritten obituaries, etc.).

The "BIOGRAPHY" section " IS NOT" for cutting & pasting Census details showing WHO ELSE lived at the same address on that 1 specific day during the person's life… and it also should not include the "birth and death details" of other people UNLESS those other people "do not" have their own Find A Grave memorials. THE BIO TELLS A STORY ABOUT THE DECEASED PERSON'S LIFE. After all, when you give the Eulogy at someone's funeral YOU NEVER SAY: "and during the 1930 census they were living with their Great-Aunt Fannie." -- If you have DETAILS about the person's life that you would like added to the BIO section, I will happily add them... BUT I WILL NOT turn the deceased person's "BIO aka EULOGY" into a pile of cut & pasted genealogy research findings. Please submit your "ADD TO BIO" request via the "SUGGEST EDITS" page.

Thank you and stay well ..... JerseyGirl