Hello and welcome! My name is Devin Finley. I was born and raised in Quincy, Illinois, and I have been actively researching family history as a genealogist since 2020. What started as a personal journey into my own family tree quickly grew into a passion for preserving local history, documenting forgotten graves, and helping connect families with their ancestors.

My surname, Finley, traces back a little over a millennium to Gaelic roots (Fionnlagh, meaning "fair hero" or "fair warrior"), famously linked to Findláech, the 11th-century ruler and father of Macbeth. On my paternal side, my Finley ancestors emigrated from Ireland in the early 1700s aboard the Eagle Wing. My direct line traces back to my 4th great-grandfather, Robert Finley (b. circa 1790, believed to be Virginia) and his wife, Dorcas Powell. Their line migrated through Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas before settling in Illinois. On my maternal side, my ancestors arrived from Germany in the 1850s, landing at New Orleans and traveling up the Mississippi River by boat to settle directly in Quincy.

My work on Find a Grave is dedicated entirely to digital preservation and creating accurate memorials using online obituaries and historical records, with a heavy geographic focus on Missouri and my hometown area of Quincy and Adams County, Illinois. Because I no longer live in the Quincy area, I am unable to fulfill in-person cemetery photo requests, as my contributions remain strictly focused on digital recordkeeping and memorial creation.

I believe genealogy is a team effort, and I always welcome collaboration!

Surnames under active research:

• Paternal Lines: Finley, Webb, Copeland, Harvey, Goff, Johnson, and Edgar
• Maternal Lines: Hale, Purtle, Miller, Jackett, Haubrock, Leffler, and Schlipman

Corrections, edits, and additional details on my memorials are always appreciated, and I am happy to transfer memorials to direct family members upon request. Thank you for visiting my page, and feel free to reach out via message if you have questions or share a family line!

"To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die." — Thomas Campbell