When I started tracing my family history, Find a Grave quickly became one of the tools I turned to most often. It’s a free website that helps me locate the burial sites of my ancestors, view headstone photos, and sometimes even discover new family connections through memorials and obituaries. Over time, I’ve learned how to get the most out of what it offers—and how to contribute back to the community, too.
What It Does and How I Use It
Find a Grave allows me to search for gravesites by name, location, date, or cemetery. When I miss a death date or burial location in my tree, this is one of the first places I check. I’ve found many memorials, including birth and death dates, photos of the headstone, and sometimes biographical notes or links to relatives. Volunteers create entries, and I’ve found that many memorials are surprisingly detailed, especially for people buried in small-town cemeteries where official records might be spotty.
What I like about memorials is the way they link to family members. I can move from a person’s memorial to their spouse, parents, or children, which often helps me fill in gaps or discover entire branches I hadn’t confirmed yet. I can also request headstone photos or even create my memorials for missing relatives. As a registered user (which is free), I’ve added entries for relatives who had no online record before.
Cost and Accessibility
One of Find a Grave’s most significant advantages is that it’s completely free. I don’t need a subscription or special access to view memorials, search cemetery records, or upload content.
Find a Grave is owned by Ancestry, so it integrates well with their system—I can easily attach memorials or source info to individuals in my Ancestry tree. But I don’t need to be an Ancestry user to use Find a Grave. It stands alone as a searchable, community-driven database that grows daily.
Contributing and Community
What sets Find a Grave apart is its volunteer spirit. I’ve used it as a research tool and contributed by uploading headstone photos, creating memorials for distant cousins, and submitting corrections when I find errors. It feels good to know I’m helping preserve the memory of people who might otherwise be forgotten—and I’ve had strangers do the same for me.
In short, Find a Grave is one of the most helpful free resources I use in my genealogy research. Whether I’m verifying dates, tracking down burial sites, or piecing together a family group, it’s saved me time and provided key clues. And because users like me build it, I know every photo and memorial added helps someone else uncover a part of their story.
Echo's of Our Ancestors 
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