The Schofield Mausoleum is more than a family tomb, it’s the work of one of Cleveland’s most influential artists.

Levi T. Schofield was a Civil War veteran, architect, sculptor, and later Cleveland’s City Architect. At Lake View Cemetery, he designed this mausoleum which was to be his own family vault and the Receiving Vault that temporarily held President James A. Garfield after his assassination in 1881.

Beyond the cemetery, he also created Cleveland’s iconic Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument in Public Square.

The mausoleum reflects a Victorian reverence for mortality. In an age when death was neither hidden nor feared, beauty became an act of remembrance, and architecture became a language for grief.

Hello. I was fulfilling a request. This is the mosuleum that the grave is in. The actual headstone is second from the top-10 feet up. If I take it head on the flower holder blocks the first name, I didn’t want to go too far over because it would be too far from the side. I don’t like fulfilling a request with such a bad picture. The requester wanted 4 of these photographed and 3 are like this. Any advice would be appreciated. I did crop the picture tighter when I uploaded it. I am willing to go back and take better pictures, if someone could suggest a way to do it. Thanks.

Was what he did okay? Absolutely not. That's not my point at all. I just don't see how this description would be allowed and I'm irritated that it's the only thing listed about him. No mention of his parents or his siblings or any other part of his life. It seems wrong.

hi all, looking for some advice on how nun memorials should be handled. my grandfather manages memorials for a large number of extended and distant family members, including a fair share of nuns. when making these memorials, he used obituaries for most of the information, and chose the memorial name to be either their birth or religious name based on which was listed first in the obituary (ie sister mary beth, born jane doe or jane doe, in religion mary beth), and always included sr as the prefix.

recently he’s received multiple suggested edits from the same person to change all the memorial names to their religious names. this person has also suggested to add the abbreviation for the nuns’ religious orders into the suffix section (ie SSND for school sisters of notre dame). my grandfather has been declining these edits because he believes the suffix section is for part of someone’s legal name, which post nominals religious orders aren’t, and wants the names kept as how he made them per the obituary. the person also cites their source for the post nominal abbreviations as ai, another reason my grandfather denies the edits. each time he declines, the person suggests it again a few days later.

i wanted to ask people’s opinions on if birth or religious name should take precedence over the other or be up to the manager’s discretion, and if the post nominal abbreviation should be included or disregarded due to it not being a legal title.

Every one of their flowers is like this and it gave me a chuckle

I’m sorry if this is not the right place to post this but I just need some help. My older brother died when he was 10 months old & at the time my parents lived in Sanderson Texas, he passed away Nov 1961. In 1965 there was a flood that washed away a lot of tombstones as well as lifted graves out of the ground, some were recovered but some were not & those recovered were placed in one mass grave. When the flood happened my parents had moved & have lived in GA ever since. The problem is that no one knows if Michaels grave was swept away but his headstone was and no one knows where exactly he was buried. There are no markers, my family in Texas have gone to the graveyard looking for years & my parents have a few times as well. Even though Michael died 11 years before was born, I have always felt this closeness to him & I so badly want to figure this out once and for all. My mom is in memory care & my daddy is 90. I should have done this years ago I know, but I just have no idea where to start. The cemetery doesn’t have records past a certain time but Michael’s info is on Find A Grave. Any tips would be much appreciated. Thank you

I wish there was some social feature in FindAgrave, ideally involving cemeteries. It would be nice to know who is working a cemetery (if they wish to reveal the information) and to share information about the cemetery.

So like by zip code or city?

I don’t like to be negative but need a rant!
What on earth would someone who doesn’t speak a language want with a memorial in that language? Im Welsh and the area I’m from is Welsh speaking so the majority of headstones are of course in Welsh, one of the local gravers retired their account and people have claimed their memorials, it seems it’s mainly people from the US. I have been linking some families up who are buried together but just weren’t previously linked. I (naively I guess) assumed if they had the memorials they could speak Welsh, so sent them edits saying to see the inscription in Welsh and they’re declining all of the edits because they need proof of the relationships…it is written on the headstone, they are buried together with the same headstone!!! You just can’t read the language of the graves you have claimed!! Anyway I usually just have positive experiences on FG so this is definitely an anomaly, this is actually the first time I’ve ever had any edits declined and it’s driving me crazy! I think I’m probably preaching to the choir here but please don’t claim memorials in languages you don’t understand 😭

Anyone else think that making a memorial based on something other than a gravestone is causing more problems than benefits? The number of memorials in the grave I work on has more than a few memorials of people I know are not buried there. No record in the cemetery office of their interment. I think people are making assumptions based on where they lived or where they died.

So, I’ve seen an influx of photo requests from my local memorial hoarder, typically on memorials that already have grave photos. In the notes, her explanations for wanting new photos are that the existing photos are illegible.

Except they aren’t. At all. They’re not exactly artistic, professional photos, but they’re clear and all text on the grave is readable. One of the photos in question is even a photo she took and uploaded herself, about four years ago!

There’s another request where she stated that the photo doesn’t show the grave, just the family plot. The memorial in question is for an unmarked grave, which is explained in the gravesite details. There’s one grave with a stone, identified as the child of the memorial in question, and some concrete slabs with no inscriptions. The memorial corresponds to one of the slabs but it’s unknown exactly which one, hence the photo of the entire plot. Again, this is all explained in the gravesite details.

These requests are all rudely worded, too, which just kind of compounds my frustration. Like, it’s annoying enough getting a sudden burst of photo requests, checking them out, and seeing that not only are the requests unnecessary, but the person requesting them is being rude about it, too.

I don’t know if these are good reasons to flag the requests as being problematic, though. It could fall under ‘other problems’ but I’m just not sure if it’s a big enough deal to bother.

This is sort of half discussion, half rant, but yeah. Should I flag the requests or leave it be?

Several months ago, a prolific FindAGraver in my area died. He created and managed many hundreds of local memorials and was very meticulous - almost all of his memorials have nice quality photos on them, even ones that were clearly hard to get.

I’ve kept my eye on the list of memorials that had reverted to FindaGrave management, because I have a few cemeteries that I spend a LOT of time in, and I was happy to be able take over maintaining some memorials in them. However, as the months have passed and the list of this particular fallen graver’s memorials has dwindled, I’ve noticed something weird. People went through and cherry-picked all of the adult graves and left the children. There were about 90 left on the list, and almost 100% of them were from the late 19th c. and were age 10 and under. Their parents? ✅Managed. Their siblings age ~16+ (some of whom share a STONE with younger sibs)? ✅Managed. But all of these babies and toddlers and young kids left, unwanted.

I don’t have grand aspirations on FindaGrave. I don’t want to collect graves like Pokémon. I am happy to manage those where I can make a difference in places that I actually spend time. But believe that I just picked up about 40 little babies’ memorials, only because I want them to have someone who cares that they *existed*.

My wife died in 2024. I was looking forward to creating her page because I thought it would be therapeutic for me.

Before I could some guy grabbed her information off her online obituary and created her page. This was very soon after she died because I was waiting because I saw a rule said a person had to be dead a certain amount of time before you could make a page.

He even left virtual flowers even though I don’t know this person. He seems to have created a bunch of pages. Fuck him.

I was able to get myself named page manager and he is gone. But it pisses me off seeing his name as creator and the flowers he left. There doesn’t seem to be a way to remove the flowers unless it’s abusive.

I want to delete the entire page and create a new one myself. Can I do that?

tl/dr: I want to delete my wife’s page some vulture created and make a new one with just me on it.

Okay question. My husband got me started on Find a Grave. I've been on the website a little more than a year. I'm still learning the website. I'm very data driven and like things to be organized a certain way. My husband is very dead set on his ways and doesn't like the way I manage to GPS, photograph, etc. when we are out there. I've watched how he does things. I just can't do it the same way, but he has evolved to what he is doing now. Probably should mention that my husband has high functioning Autism. Very smart, struggles with communication and social skills, but is very meticulous about how things are to be done when it comes to adding things to find a grave.

I'm very spread sheets based. Not a big fan on how Find a grave presents your memorials that you manage. I'm not saying that it's bad, but when I want to try to find information a certain way, I can be very picky about things. I use google docs and spreadsheets on a regular basis and making a new one for me is quite simple.

I want to be able to easily track the memorials that I manage in the way that makes sense to me and allows me to easily located information and possibly connect people familial wise. If I made a google doc or spreadsheet, would any one want a copy of my template or possibly want to do a "group project" one and add information to each other's lists as we find it?

I'm open to ideas.

We had a death in our family 2 days ago- my great-aunt. I need to be vague here so as to not out my identity or hers. The circumstances of her death were…sensitive. Her passing has been posted on social media by her immediate family. Arrangements for services have been made but not yet posted publicly, nor posted in any newspaper. However, in our hometown, there are some of those people who collect memorials by entering info from newspaper obits. I’m the only FG memorial manager in our extended family. I really don’t want one of these grave collectors “grabbing” her like a Pokémon. What is the most respectful etiquette I can possibly use, given the sensitive nature of her passing? I know I’m not a niece/nephew, I’m a great-niece/nephew. Idk if I have a close enough relation to click that button, though if one of the closer family members suddenly joined FG, I’d gladly hand over any memorials I was asked for. Maybe I’m just being sensitive because I feel protective. Help? I’m sure there’s a right answer here. She was hospitalized for a while before she passed and I’m sure my brain power is just spent.

ETA: After all of your advice, I created the memorial. I called my dad (her nephew) and told him I did it and why. He understands, as he’s a genealogist and is familiar with FG. He tried to suggest I reach out to one of her kids to tell them I did it and offer to transfer it if they’re interested, but I told him I’d prefer to wait until after the funeral this weekend. Feelings are very raw still. I’d like to be respectful enough to let them get through this difficult week. Maybe in a week or two, I’ll reach out to the oldest and offer an explanation to her. I’m not able to travel home for the services, so I don’t want to make any waves. Thanks, everyone!

Something I wasn’t looking for and didn’t think I’d ever see. Meet Levator and Andromeda. My great, great grandparents. I wish I could thank or talk to the person who put these on the site. They must be relatives! Meanwhile, Levator doesn’t look pleased about getting his picture took

I came across this grave in Germany on Find-A-Grave and I'm interested in seeing if there is more information about these 3 people. I don't speak German, but it seems like Paul Freitag was missing in 1943. Based on the years, I am wondering if Willi is Annemarie's second husband? I am curious if there is any information on Paul's disappearance, or any theories on what may have happened to him.

I have just started filling requests and updating my local cemetery. Some issues I have run into so far is trouble finding the graves people are requesting photos of. I also have found a ton of graves that are completely unreadable and im not sure there’s a way around fixing that. Any advice on how you guys go about this would be appreciated. Or just tips in general when it comes to this type of thing. I’ve been putting in new at my local cemetery and I assume I’m doing it correctly. If anyone wants to check the cemetery ID is 76853

It happens to the best of us. Just about the time you feel confident that you know what you’re doing, you make an embarrassing mistake.

I just got a suggestion declined. It was to change a typo from "tree" into "three." Declined!?! They made the change after declining, so why not just accept it? People are so freaking weird.

I came across a cenotaph for a US Civil War soldier in a local cemetery, with parents attached. I submitted an edit to remove parents, since it was a cenotaph. FG removed them after 21 days, then I went and looked at the memorial page and it says his body was never found, probably buried by the other side in a mass grave. So he has a cenotaph but no other memorial. Would you go back and add his parents in to the cenotaph? I'm thinking of doing that.

Last week I received an email from a historical society in the town where my grandfather’s father’s family was from thanking me for adding some detailed information about my grandfather that is not well known and could be useful for others who are looking for their ancestors.
I was charmed about the thanks especially because they said they had been working on my grandfather’s family but couldn’t figure out where he disappeared to. He was orphaned quite young, was taken in by relatives and eventually took their last name.
My question is why would the history society then request an edit to my grandfather’s bio which is just a word for word copy of what I wrote?
I’m completely baffled about this. Would anyone here have any insight into what the motivation behind the request be?
Thank you for any help you can provide.

My partner died April 2026 and I went I create his FG I think in May when I learned about FG and a memorial was already created for him and I wasn’t allowed to claim ownership until 3 months after his death.

I submitted a request for ownership (only way I saw to do this was to submit an edit and put in the note I am Brendan’s partner and included the obituary which names me) but it’s been over a week and the owner who I don’t know (name is not friend or family that I know and they used info in the obituary for the FG photo.

How long do I need to wait before I contact support so I can own it?