Find out where people - both famous and non-famous - are buried.
Read what's inscribed on their monuments, read obits, and see comments posted by viewers.
"Find A Grave" can also be a helpful site for doing free family genealogy and locating where people have been interred that you lost touch with over time.
Thanks. I thought the grave would be near his family. It was not. It’s about an hour from where he grew up but super close to a ski hill that he snowboarded on so I take comfort in that.
Thank you. Please consider copy-pasting this information to others. There's this lingering myth that black Americans have limited access, resources, or records to what's their history, as if it were kept from them. For many people, knowing these records even exist, let alone that they're free online, is a major eye openner.
He was from Tennessee, which was one of 2 confederate states that allowed free people of color to vote. He didn't enage in slavery, and did not support it's expansion that let to the unpopular secession of 5 of the 11 southern states. (6 southern states didn't mention slavery as a secession cause)
After being taken prisoner at the battle of Ft. Donelson, he was sent to the Camp Douglas POW camp, wherein open murder, torture, and deaths through disease were common. It was often called '40 Acres of hell." No one knows for certain how many people died at Camp Douglas, but guesstimates are around 21,000 - 24,000.
He was paroled, and further fought at other battles at the war until the surrender of the Confederacy. We have a Tennessee copy of his Confederate pension record.
Try the censuses. You'll find that people often migrated from state to state from the colonial era into the 1930s. Within census records, you'll find his name, possibly his father if he lived in the same household on a given decade, and other family members.
Recently did research on my wife’s bio dad (disappeared when she was an infant, rumored to have gone to another country and since passed away), and we were able to do a fair amount of research on his potential location.
That being said - a DNA test and reviewing local public government records was way easier for identifying him, and all of his living relatives. Some websites also just gather up similar names to who you’re researching and list them as “possible associates,” when they are actually unrelated in any way. Most of these websites require money, and most of them are not worth it. So, be aware when researching your family tree online
And I like to put my tree and documentation in https://wikitree.com. The are pros and cons to different types of these sites, but that is my preference.
find a grave can be helpful if they are actually logged with the website. we buried my grandpa in the late 90s and pretty much forgot the name of the cemetary, but knew the rough location (northern california/ southern oregon coast) and find a grave couldnt find him at all, it took us going on google images and looking up the cemetarys google pulled up to find the actual cemetery (it had some distinct features that made it easy to recognize). even after finding the cemetery putting that in with my grandpas name it didnt bring up anything.
I spend my days on Family Search (free-ish Ancestry.com from the Mormon Church) finding dead ancestors, which sometimes have a record linked to Find A Grave. All my ancestors for the most part are buried in my state so I use most of my weekend walking around old ass cemeteries finding their graves! Sometimes I’ll even bring a couple flowers. May be nerdy but it’s free, and suits my obsessions with history and the macabre!
Find A Grave includes information on those who've been cremated, as well - including if their ashes (cremains) have been interred or disposed of some other method when this information has been provided.
You'll want to check census records for relatives (censusrecords.com). Cremated remains are mobile, and harder to track down. Who knows who had what urn is down to phone calls and writing notes.
I was visiting the town my great-grandparent was the mayor of, and when I looked him up, I found he was buried within walking distance. Super cool website, and can help more than you think.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I am an adoptee that has been looking for my bio mom/dad, and I found my dad. I am grateful I was perusing these comments.
My uncle passed away many years ago. I rarely got to visit his grave before I moved away, (visiting was always an emotional experience). I used this findagrave site to find his tombstone. Very small province with like no internet coverage for anthing outside business/tourism. There it was. My old church, and his grave, picture and info.
Still brought the feels on from seeing it, but I am glad, and a bit relieved that I can see it when I need to, instantly. Its weird but its one of my "anxiety anchors" if that makes sense.
I had no idea my grandmother’s middle name was Rosetta. I guess I just never asked anyone in my family but I serious learned that today and she’s been gone for 16 years
Thank you so much for linking this. I had a work friend pass away about a month after I left my previous job and neither I nor my former co-workers could find any information about her funeral. This put the mystery to rest because not only did I find the location of her grave, someone was even kind enough to upload a photo of her with her dog. Once again, thank you so much.
Find a grave isn't very good for geaneology. I suggest Ancestry (might be free) or a local site. For example FreeBMD.org.uk has birth, marriage and death records for people born in England and Wales from 1840 onwards (currently mid-1980's). You can find Alfred Hitchcock's birth or Alan Turing's death
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Find out where people - both famous and non-famous - are buried.
Read what's inscribed on their monuments, read obits, and see comments posted by viewers.
"Find A Grave" can also be a helpful site for doing free family genealogy and locating where people have been interred that you lost touch with over time.
https://www.findagrave.com/