Changing the Cemetery on a Find A Grave memorial (Newer FAG interface, current as of 2021)


By Chris Mills

Without getting too much into the whys and wherefors, from time to time it is necessary to change the burial information on a Find A Grave memorial from one cemetery to a different cemetery. Below is a step-by-step explanation of the process.

I had to update this page because Find A Grave changed this procedure when they changed the interface a couple of years ago. You can still find the link to the original page on my site, but it's of purely historical interest at this point since Find A Grave started forcing everyone to use the new interface at least two or three years ago.

This may seem obvious, but this procedure assumes you control the memorial that needs to be updated. This doesn't work if you don't control the memorial, I think you just have to ask the person who controls it to manually update the memorial themselves by using the Suggest Other Corrections option. Then they have to walk through the steps I'm outlining here and you will have no part in it (although of course you can send them a link to this page if they don't know how to do it).

Begin by going to the memorial that has been placed in the wrong cemetery.

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Find the edit button underneath the basic memorial information then click on it.
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The edit window should open up. Scroll down until you see this section:
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Click on the button that says "Change Burial Details"

The following screen should open:

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By the way, before you change this information you should have the exact cemetery name and location memorized or written down. You do not want to be trying to make these changes if you don't know which cemetery you're trying to move the memorial to as well as where it is located.

In the example below, I'm changing the memorial from one Forest Lawn Memorial Park to another in a different city.

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Start with the name of the cemetery EXACTLY as it is spelled on Find A Grave. Once you have a match click on that name.

Then type the location into the box underneath that says Cemetery Location. The format is city name followed by a comma followed by the county name followed by the word county then followed by another comma. Once you've put in that information if there is only one match then just click on it to select it. If there are multiple matches make sure to click on the correct one (presumably the one in the right state).

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By the way, if the cemetery you are moving the memorial to does not have an attached city (only a county) then begin the location with the county name, because of course in that scenario there is no city attached to the cemetery.

Once you've entered a cemetery name and the corresponding location and clicked on the location line, you should see a screen similar to this:

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If everything looks good now click on the orange Update button.

You will then see the following option assuming the cemetery name and location you entered match a cemetery. In this case only one cemetery matched, so you can choose the single cemetery by clicking on it (If more than one cemetery matched your criteria, you'd have to click on one of them to select it).

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Once you've selected a cemetery and clicked on it, there's only one more step. You're back at the memorial, but you need to click on the orange button that says "Save Changes" to finish updating the memorial.

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Once you've confirmed that update you will be back at the memorial, but now it should show the cemetery you changed the memorial to point to. If there is a plot location listed you may have to update it, or remove it entirely if you don't know what the plot location is in the new cemetery. Go back into edit mode if necessary to edit the plot location.

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That should be it, if you have any questions about this feel free to contact me.

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© 2021 by Chris Mills