Sunday, September 14, 2014

Mining FindAGrave.com

Recently I began mining the FindAGrave.com website for additional information about folks in my database.  I set up a search in my Rootsmagic database for anyone whose death date in not blank and whose burial place is blank.



As I'm making my way through the database, I'm searching at the FindAGrave.com site to see if anyone has posted a memorial page for the individual who matches the information in my database.  I'm then adding the burial place to my database.  I've created a source template for the burial information as well.


The finished source might look something like this:

FindAGrave Inc., FindAGrave.com (www.findagrave.com : accessed 13 September 2014), Joseph Allen (1733-1816) memorial.

Nothing spectacular, but it's something that I should have been doing or could have been doing for several years.  I've been a member at FindAGrave.com for a long time and have been a contributor.  As a free site, it has a lot of information and many times additional clues that I didn't have in my database.

As I make my way through the alphabet (right now I'm still in the "A" section), I am adding the final burial location for folks in the database, but also am adding birth, death and marriage information as I find it.  I'm making sure I source it right away so that I know where I found the information.  This information will be helpful in leading me to new clues on these people.

My goal is to get through Rootmagic  first with everyone that doesn't have a burial location listed, then go back and check those that I did already have with a burial location to see if they have a memorial page, add sourcing from FindAGrave and add any additional information.


1 comment:

another user of findagrave said...

I recommend you keep track of the memorial number too, so you can go back to it quickly.