As of 01 Sep. 2026:

If you volunteer on this website and decide you no longer want to maintain the records, please transfer your records to someone who has an active account and willing to take over the records. I am one of many willing to take over records from my area. This really will help reduce duplicates. It would also be a good idea to leave someone instructions on how to make these transfers should you go inactive without warning. Thank You (Borrowed from another FAG Contributor)

This poem was found among my father-in-law's "Jerry" final things:

THE KNOTS PRAYER

Dear God

Please untie the knots

That are in my mind,

My heart and my life.

Remove the nots,

The can nots and the do knots

That I have in my mind.

Erase the will nots,

May nots,

Might nots that my find

A home in my heart.

Release me from the could nots,

Would nots and

Should nots that obstruct my life

And most of all,

Dear God,

I ask that you remove from my mind,

My heart and my life all of the 'am nots'

That I have allowed to hold me back,

Especially the thought

That I am not good enough.

Amen

(Author known to God!)

"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, "Wow! What a Ride!" - -Hunter S. Thompson

My wife thinks I'm crazy! I told her, I have Topophilia! I'm a Taphophile! An abnormal love for graves and cemeteries. Love of walking cemeteries and finding lost relatives and the gravesites of ancestors. Such an illness to have!

"The goal at Find A Grave should not be to manage all of your family members. If you have information to add, you should suggest it to the current manager & they should make the changes."

~Jim Tipton, creator of Find A Grave.

Find A Grave members are volunteers; we try to treat everyone with respect & hope you will show us respect also. Please realize this is a Graves Registration site.

"Find a Grave's mission, is to help people from all over the world work together to find, record, present final disposition information as a virtual cemetery experience".

I am more than happy to make transfers well beyond the 4 Generation Find A Grave guidelines & much, much more. Many of the memorials are of family relations & I would want to talk with you before making any other transfers, as we could be relations & I'd like to know you better. I have been volunteering to take photos at the local Sunset View Cemetery & Sunset Mausoleum & Columbarium in El Cerrito, Contra Costa County, CA. & Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, Alameda County, CA., however since it is very large & gone mostly un-photographed, & because of its size & poor contact with the office staff there. Please use the EDIT tab to ask for EACH transfer and volunteer photo request. For EXTENDED FAMILY MEMBERS I will gladly make additions, corrections or links. PLEASE USE the EDIT TAB below the memorial# to send the information and please send the memorial numbers for links.

If you've benefited from information found on Find A Grave, please consider paying it forward by becoming a photo volunteer. Headstones are disappearing through deterioration, damage or vandalism. Once they're gone, so is the history they document.

Please DO NOT leave biographical information & obituaries in a virtual flower.

Thanks to all of you who have sent additional information for any memorials.

I started studying my BABCOCK family just before my daughter was born over 45 years ago, to give her an idea of who her family was & where they came from. I soon got stuck on Sherman BABCOCK b. 1762, in Rhode Island, & now many years later, I now have over 24,000 family members, under many different names, in many countries from all around the world & 6 beautiful grandchildren. It is now for them, that I continue my research. Some family names include: ABERT(French), BABCOCK, BEDENK, BERNESQUE(French), BRAAE-JOHANNESSEN(Norway), BURK, BURKE, BUSH, CASE, COOPER, DAHLIN(Finland), DODGE, GRASS(Switzerland), GULER(Switzerland), HAMILTON, HARDIN, HENNESSEY, LAPEYRE(French), LEMBECK, LITTLE, MASON, MCFARLAND, MULKIN, NOLAN, PERKINS, POUTOUS(French), PURCELL(Ireland), PYBURN, RANDOLPH, RICH, TUFFLI(Switzerland), WELD, WILHITE, WILLARD, WISDOM, WOOLHART, they are among many others I continue to research.

To those of who will grab a cemetery full of information & then refuse to consider close family transfers, because you downloaded information & just want FaG #'s, shame, shame on you & your personal issues & false beliefs. Do the research! To those who help others out when in times of learning(connie), need, research & make such transfers, I thank you for your work, time & true beliefs. As this is what it is all about!

I welcome any and all comments and corrections.

I truly believe:

"Our greatest treasure is our family, not only the warm circle around the Christmas tree, but all those whose lives gave us life, & those who will carry our love into the future." (Anonymous)

And when it is my time, I would say to all who knew me:

"Do not stand at my grave & weep.

I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning's hush

I am the swift uplifting rush

of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry;

I am not there. I did not die, Look into your heart". (Anonymous)