SUCCESS! – FIND A GRAVE POSTED THE ENTRIES FROM MY SPREADSHEET

View of the back of the Aboyne Parish church.  Isn't this a lovely place?

I said I would let you know how it went with my first submission of a spreadsheet to FindAGrave.

I went GREAT!  Their website said it could take a week for them to post the entries.  I’m figuring, if I hear back within a couple of weeks, I’d be happy.

THEY RESPONDED THE SAME EVENING THAT MY ENTRIES WERE SUBMITTED!

Talk about good turn-around time.  I checked my submissions by going to the FindAGrave website.  Every memorial was on the site.

However, I learned something about the marker transcriptions I submitted.  There were many headstones that had multiple names on them.  Such as this one.

                                         (Click on this image to enlarge it)

When I entered the information on the spreadsheet on each individual name, I did not enter the entire headstone transcription.  As a result, for Elizabeth Smith (see her on the headstone above), her marker inscription read “Also his wife Elizabeth Smith died 28th Jan. 1938 aged 78 years.”

This did not read well, in my opinion, as it was a partial transcription.  Even though it referred specifically to her.  I went onto each individual memorial that I had submitted and made sure the entire headstone transcription was on each memorial.  It took me about 15 minutes to accomplish this and now I’m satisfied.  

I have no doubt that when you have more than 25 entries to add to a cemetery on FindAGrave, that using the spreadsheet submission is the quicker and more efficient way of doing so.  You can always go back later and double check your work and make any adjustments, as I have done.  I suspect that anyone making entries of 25 or more is doing so for mostly non-family members, as they photograph or transcribe a particular cemetery.  That being the case we would not have a lot of biographical text to enter.

So, that was my experience.  I have another 50 or so people to add to the Aboyne Kirkyard Cemetery on the FindAGrave site.  I’ll work on that tomorrow, using the spreadsheet.  Then once they are all on the site, I will add the headstone photos.  This is a form of “giving back” that I am really enjoying.  I have had a great number of FindAGrave volunteers take photos for me through the years, and I cannot thank them enough.

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2014   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

ADDING SIBLINGS TO FINDAGRAVE– AN UPDATE

I have learned, thanks to my readers, that there have been changes on the FindAGrave site, regarding links to siblings.

Prior to this time you were only able to see links to parents and spouses, unless you used a special HTML code to add the siblings.

However, now when you have more than one child listed for a particular parent, the site automatically links to the other sibling or siblings, as well.

Here is the post from the FindAGrave site regarding this change:

“How do a person's siblings show up on their memorial page?
When an individual's memorial page is linked to one or more parent memorial pages, that individual's memorial will show up as a sibling on any other memorial pages that have been linked to one of the parents. The individual's name will show up on the sibling list of their own memorial to help show where the individual was in the birth order of the siblings. Memorials may only be linked to parents and spouses, and sibling links are automatically generated; there is no ability to add sibling links directly to a memorial page.”

When I went to my grandfather’s memorial today here is what I found.



You can see the siblings are listed, and I know I didn't add them. And, what they have also done is place the current person you are viewing into the sibling list in the correct birth order.

I think this is a GREAT addition to the FindAGrave site!

Prior to this we had to add the siblings manually, using HTML code.  I wrote about this in a previous post which you can find here. ADDING SIBLINGS TO FINDAGRAVE

The only time we will need to use the HTML code is when we don’t know the parent’s names, or there is no memorial for them.  

WHAT IF I’VE ALREADY ADDED THE SIBLING LINKS TO THE MEMORIAL?

Unfortunately, you will now have duplicate lists of siblings on your memorial.

Here is my grandmother’s memorial, showing two lists of siblings.

The red area is the list of siblings I added to her memorial.

The green area shows the list added by the FindAGrave site, automatically linking to the parents and therefore, linking to the siblings.

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO REMOVE THE DUPLICATES?

I will remove the list I created by going into the “edit bio” area and removing the HTML code I added.

Simply delete the code from the bio and the extra list of siblings will disappear.

Here is my grandmother’s memorial after I deleted the code.  You can see that there is only one list of siblings.



Changes like this one make the FindAGrave site even more useful to researchers and I thank them for adding this feature.

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2014   Diane Gould Hall

Connection with our Lindsay side!

Boy, is this ever exciting. I was contacted a few days ago by someone who found one of the memorials I had posted on Find A Grave. She said she was a G G Granddaughter of this particular Lindsay. Wait a minute..............I'm also a G G Granddaughter of the same man. Holy cow! That's my Grandmother's family and I don't have any really good contacts on that line.
I wrote back to her immediately. Since then we have talked (she still lives in Michigan) and we have exchanged family groups sheets and photos. What a find. Can't wait to meet her when I go back to Michigan for a visit.
The more you put your information out there, the more likely you are to connect with others doing research on the same lines. Find A Grave has been an excellent site for finding information about deceased family (you'd be surprised where they show up). You'll be saying to yourself, who knew they moved to that state and then were buried there?
That's all I have time for today - back soon,
Michigan Girl