A source should never be used without the genealogist asking:
How complete is it? How was it compiled? What could be missing?
FindAGrave is perhaps the perfect example. It only includes burials that have been submitted by someone who either took a picture of the tombstone or, in some cases, learned about a burial in the cemetery or another source. It’s a great resource, to be certain, and it is a great place to start, but by its very nature it can be incomplete. Not every burial had a tombstone, deaths before death records were not recorded, and not every death or burial gets mentioned in a newspaper, etc.
Every site or set of records should be used with the same concern over completeness–not just FindAGrave.
But you should always be asking yourself “how complete is this source?”
4 Responses
And not every gravestone inscription records a burial! I have encountered many examples (e.g. a remarried widow, a son lost in war) in which a family records a death on a gravestone even though interment took place elsewhere.
Good point. That happens more than people think.
True. As in the case of my great grandpa – both the birth date AND the death dates are wrong. My grandpa told me the family couldn’t afford to buy a stone for him, so they were offered a stone of another man with that same name for a very low price when this man’s family didn’t pay for it! Go figure… expect anything!
Sometimes one has to be practical and it’s not always easy to be worried about leaving an accurate record for someone in a hundred years 😉