I've been researching my family history for over 30 years. While I live in northern Illinois, most of my roots are in northeastern Wisconsin and the central U.P. of Michigan (Delta County specifically), as well as central Iowa. My heritage consists of French-Canadian, Native American, Scottish, Swedish, German and Waldensian ancestry, as well a few branches from central Illinois and Kentucky that I've been unable to trace back to the old world.

When adding memorials, I use the name on the death certificate or obituary, even if the gravestone has something else, like a nickname or an outdated surname (how many widows remarried after putting their name on a joint gravestone with their deceased husband?) As a genealogist, I think using the "official" name helps other researchers find the people they're looking for.

As a researcher, I always want original sources. Therefore, I do upload death certificates and obituaries to memorials. While I don't particular like it when the death certificate is the only image on the memorial, sometimes it's the only documentation to prove that the person is buried in that cemetery. As for obituaries, I greatly prefer an image of the "real" obit. I don't care for transcribed documents because I can never be certain if there are typos or omissions. With that said, transcriptions can still be useful--as long as the source is cited. At least then I know where to go to get the original if I need it.

My latest project (starting late 2025) is working on the cemeteries of Delta County, Michigan, verifying, updating, correcting and (unfortunately) merging duplicates. Through this process I've taken over management of a bunch of memorials that were being managed by findagrave. I'm doing my due diligence on each memorial, and when I receive edit requests, I do try to verify the information, and if needed I'll ask the submitter for the source of their information if it's not provided.

A few pet peeves:

1. Images of documents uploaded to memorials, with no source citation and/or context. Same with transcriptions in the bio section. Cite your sources!
2. Newspapers.com: I've found that this site frequently has indexing errors. So please please please, when using that website, do NOT go by the date and page number at the top of the screen. ALWAYS scroll to the top of the image to see what the date and page number is on the actual newspaper. (Fortunately I've not seen this problem with newspaperarchives.com, but I still always double check dates on that website, too.)