Age 63, a retired grumpy old man, living in Lara in the Geelong area, Victoria, Australia.

No I am not related.

Now, before you send me a message asking "I see you've added a photo to so and so, are you related to them?", please read the above line again. NO I AM NOT RELATED. I've added over a quarter of a million photos to the site and I can't possibly be related to all of them, it's just my hobby to photograph graves.

If you are changing or adding something on a memorial that I can't easily verify, then it's up to you to provide the evidence or I will decline the edit. Don't just say what the evidence is, but provide the documentary evidence by adding it as a photo to the memorial. If you have the person's birth or death certificate and that would verify the information then don't just tell me that you have the birth or death certificate, PROVE IT by adding it as a photo.

Please be kind and say thank you to the hard working volunteers who fill your photo requests. If they're anything like me, they have likely travelled some distance to the cemetery and then spent time walking around the cemetery to fill your request so they deserve to be thanked for that. If your requests have stopped being filled then not thanking someone for previous requests could be why. I've got a growing list of 88 members that I refuse to take photos for anymore because they couldn't be bothered to spend 1 minute of their time to send me a message to say Thanks, not just on one occasion as I give everyone 2 or 3 chances before adding them to my list. I am also not inclined to take photos for people who seem to think it's perfectly OK to request 50 photos at a cemetery but their stats show they have taken very few if any volunteer photos themselves. How about you get out there and volunteer as well. It's a lot of work for volunteers to find the graves and take photos. Please think of all the work you are creating by requesting multiple photos of the same name just in case it might be the one you are looking for.

You have a higher chance of getting your photo requests filled if the memorial has plot information recorded. I won't waste my time looking around a whole cemetery to find a grave that could be anywhere so contact the office and get the plot information and add it to the memorial or you won't get your photo.

If you want to be a photo volunteer yourself that's a great hobby, but don't just concentrate on taking a closeup photo of the headstone or the plaque. Loved ones want to see the whole grave, not just the bit with the words on it.

Please do not create Burial Unknowns just so you can link a person to a family tree. Find a Grave is not a genealogy site. As the name suggests, its purpose is to record final disposition information to enable someone to "Find the Grave" if they want to go and visit it. Their website even says that its purpose is to record burial information. If you don't know where someone's final resting place is, then you do not create a memorial for them on Find a Grave, it's that simple, and yes that rule does actually apply to you as well.

Read the photo captions, they may contain helpful information. If you are wondering why I've added a photo to a particular memorial, there might be a caption explaining the reason, so read it instead of messaging me to ask. Photo captions are notes about a particular photo and you can access the caption by clicking on a photo and looking at the lower left side of your screen.

I won't record military prefixes for those who died after they left the military. I can guarantee you that an 80 year old gentleman was not still a Private when he died so I will not add the Private prefix. The fact that he might have served in the military for a tiny percentage of his life 60 years ago can be mentioned in the bio but he ceased to be a Private when he left the military.

I won't change the way that I display my plot information just because you don't like it that way. There is no standard way to display plot information. If the cemetery have their records online then I will use the way that they display it. The Geelong Cemetery Trust display their plot information 2 different ways. The deceased search list will display it one way, and then if you click on the map icon, it will display that person's information with the plot info displayed a different way. The majority of my memorials at Geelong Cemetery Trust cemeteries use the old way of displaying plot information. I won't change it to the new way just because YOU might prefer it that way. If cemetery records aren't online then I will probably abbreviate using section, row, and grave number. Melbourne General Cemetery records only came online in December 2025. All my memorials there were created before the records were online so the plot format will be different. I will accept edits for those to correct the plot information if it matches the format on their deceased search website.

I won't add redundant information to the bio. For example if someone is linked to their parents, there is no need to mention their names in the bio. If their year of birth and year of death are present on the memorial, there is no need to say how old they were when they died as anyone can work that out for themselves by looking at their years of birth and death. So generally if information is already available elsewhere on the memorial, I won't add it to the bio as well. I like to keep the bio short and to the point. There's no need to list when they were baptised, or what they had for lunch, or what their 3rd cousin 4 times removed did for a living. Don't be surprised if I trim your bio suggestions down significantly. This is Find a Grave, not "This is your life".

I am not a fan of newspaper articles going in the bio. If you suggest an edit to add a newspaper article to the bio such as a death notice, I will put an image of the newspaper article instead, provided the article is out of copyright.

If you have requested a memorial transfer and I haven't responded, it's either because you haven't provided enough information, or you requested it via message instead of by using the "Contact Manager" on the memorial, or your request falls outside of the transfer guidelines. I will ignore all of the above. Memorial managers do not have to respond to your requests that are outside the transfer guidelines. So there's no need to message me multiple times, as it's safe to assume that since I ignored your first message then I'm also going to ignore your subsequent messages about the same transfer. If I haven't responded to you then work it out for yourself that my answer is NO, it's not that difficult. Move on.

I'm amazed how many people don't know what a great-aunt or great-uncle is, or even a first cousin. A great aunt/uncle is only 2 generations back from yourself. They are the brother or sister of your grandparent, they are NOT the brother or sister of your great-grandparent or great-great grandparent so someone born in the 1860's is NOT your great aunt or great uncle.

Your first cousin is the same generation as you, i.e. the child of your aunt or uncle and you probably played together when you were children. They are the niece or nephew of your mum or dad. I'm not gullible enough to believe that someone born 140 years ago is your first cousin. As they are the same generation as you, first cousins are roughly the same age as you, maybe plus or minus 20 years at the most. So unless you are 120 years old, then someone born in the 1880's is NOT your first cousin. They might be your first-cousin-once-removed, or more likely your first-cousin-twice-removed, but they aren't your first cousin. So my answer to your transfer request in that case is No.

You can see now why I said at the top that I'm a grumpy old man but my care factor is low.