The short answer: Search Find a Grave (findagrave.com) for free with just a surname, a state, and a death year widened by ±10 years. Its more than 265 million volunteer-built memorials often show the headstone photo, dates, and links to relatives. No photo yet? Sign in with a free account, click Request Photo, and a volunteer who covers that cemetery may photograph the grave for you.

Somewhere out there is a stone with your great-grandmother's name on it — and there's a good chance a kind stranger has already photographed it for you. That's Find a Grave: more than 265 million cemetery memorials, built grave by grave by volunteers, and completely free to search.

For a beginning family historian it's one of the most rewarding stops on the free route: a single headstone can hand you birth and death dates, a maiden name, a military service, and — because families tend to be buried together — the next three names for your tree. This guide walks you through using it well: searching smartly, reading memorials with the right amount of trust, and getting a photo of a faraway grave without leaving your kitchen table.

Find a Grave in one paragraph

Every entry is a memorial — a page for one buried person, created by a volunteer. A memorial can hold dates, headstone photos, a short biography, links to family members' memorials, and the exact cemetery (often with the plot). It's free to search with no account; a free account lets you request photos and contribute. It's owned by Ancestry, and remains free.

Step 1: Search — less is more

From the homepage, open the memorial search and resist the urge to fill in every box. Over-filled searches miss graves; start wide and narrow only if you must:

  • Surname + state is the classic first search. Add a death year and widen it with the "+/- 10 years" setting (1940 ± 10 covers 1930–1950) rather than an exact year — stones and records disagree about dates constantly.
  • Women are usually buried under their married names. Search her married name first (Margaret Miller). Then try her maiden name (Margaret Kowalski) with the "Maiden name" box ticked under More search options — that also finds memorials listing Kowalski as her maiden name.
  • Open More search options for the good tools: "Similar name spellings" (a lifesaver for immigrant names), nickname and maiden-name matching, bio keywords, and even searching by a spouse's, parent's, child's or sibling's name.
  • The asterisk wildcard covers spelling chaos: Schmi* finds Schmidt, Schmitt, and Schmid at once.
  • No luck? Search the cemetery instead. If you know roughly where the family lived, browse cemeteries in that county and search within each — small rural graveyards are often fully photographed.

Step 2: Read the memorial — headstone first

When you open a memorial, sort what you're seeing into two piles of trustworthiness:

  • The photographed stone is strong evidence. Dates carved in granite, "wife of," "mother," military unit markers, religious symbols — this is what the family chose to record. But some stones were set years or even decades after the death, so check carved dates — especially birth dates — against records.
  • Typed details are clues. Memorials are created by volunteers — sometimes from burial registers and obituaries, sometimes copied from other people's family trees. A birth date with no photo and no source deserves a polite "we'll verify that" in your notes.

Then mine the page for bonus genealogy:

  • Family links. Many memorials link to parents, spouses, and children buried elsewhere — instant tree-building leads (verify before copying).
  • The neighbors. Open the cemetery page and look at surrounding plots or matching surnames in the same cemetery. Families bought plots together; the unfamiliar "Anna Weber" two graves over may be a married daughter you didn't know about.
  • The obituary. Volunteers often paste obituaries into the bio section — full of names of survivors. (For more of those, our free route to historic newspapers awaits.)

Step 3: No photo? Ask a volunteer — free

Here's the feature beginners love most. If a memorial has no headstone picture, sign in with a free account and use Request Photo on that memorial. If your ancestor has no memorial yet, create one in the right cemetery first, then request the photo. Volunteers who have signed up for that cemetery get an email, and — often within a few weeks, sometimes longer — one of them may walk out among the stones and photograph your ancestor's grave. It costs nothing; it runs entirely on kindness.

Three courtesies keep this lovely system working: include any plot details you have (section, row, nearby names), be patient — a remote cemetery can take weeks — and send a thank-you message when the photo arrives. And once you're comfortable, consider flipping roles: fulfilling photo requests at a cemetery near you is a gentle, outdoorsy way to give back to the hobby.

Step 4: Move the finds into your tree — with the source

When a memorial gives you a date or a maiden name, record it in your tree along with where it came from: "Find a Grave memorial #12345678, headstone photo" tells future-you exactly how solid the fact is. Save the headstone photo to your files too. If you're new to recording sources, our beginner's guide shows the habit in two minutes — it's the difference between a tree you trust and a tree you re-research.

Four beginner mistakes to avoid

  1. Treating memorial links as proven family. Those parent/spouse links are volunteer contributions — wonderful leads, not evidence. Verify with records before they enter your tree.
  2. Assuming everyone has a memorial. Coverage is superb but not complete; missing from Find a Grave doesn't mean missing from the cemetery. The cemetery office's burial register is the authority.
  3. Missing the duplicates. The same person sometimes has two memorials (one from a register, one from a stone). Check both — they may hold different details — and suggest merging.
  4. Stopping at one grave. The real prize is the family plot. Always look at who's buried around — and in the same cemetery under the same surname.

Keep every headstone discovery organized

Our free printable Starter Kit includes a four-generation tree chart, a family group sheet for each household you reconstruct, and a research log for tracking which cemeteries you've searched.

Download the Free Kit (PDF)

Frequently asked questions

Is Find a Grave really free?

Yes. Searching memorials, viewing headstone photos, requesting photos, and contributing your own additions are all free. Find a Grave is owned by Ancestry, but it has remained free to use — a free account is needed to request photos, suggest corrections, or add content.

Are the dates on Find a Grave reliable?

Treat them as strong clues, not proof. When a date is carved on a photographed headstone, it's usually trustworthy (though stones can err too). But memorials are created by volunteers, and dates or family links typed without a photo may come from other people's trees. Verify important dates against death certificates, obituaries, or census records.

How do I request a photo of a headstone?

Sign in with a free account, open the memorial, and click Request Photo — volunteers who have signed up for that cemetery get an email. If your ancestor has no memorial yet, create one in the right cemetery first. It's free; the polite conventions are to fill in any plot details you know, be patient (rural cemeteries can take weeks or longer), and send a thank-you note when a photo arrives.

Can I correct a mistake on a Find a Grave memorial?

Yes. Each memorial has a “Suggest Edit” option that sends your correction to the volunteer who manages that memorial. Include your evidence politely — a death certificate date, an obituary — and most managers update quickly. Memorials of your close relatives can even be transferred to your management on request.

What if my ancestor isn't on Find a Grave?

Not every grave has been photographed or indexed yet — and some people have no marker at all. Try BillionGraves (free to search, though some collections and features need its paid Plus plan), county genealogical society transcriptions, USGenWeb cemetery pages, and the cemetery office itself, which keeps burial registers. An obituary is often the fastest route to the burial place.

Sources

Facts checked against these sources on October 9, 2026.

Keep going: Find your immigrant ancestor's citizenship papers • The whole free-first toolkit • All the free databases we trust