By Charles Gilbert
Foote Find A Grave Tree For Your Family
I will describe a way to record and display your Foote family tree by using an interesting FIND A GRAVE concept. My Foote family tree FIND A GRAVE concept was shown to several people at the 2015 Salt Lake City, UT Foote Family convention and received favorable comments.
Here is an Example of How Records Can be Found
| This is my John Foote family tree and you can see how we are related. | |
| Generation Name | Find A Grave Number |
| 1. John Foote – 1557/58 | |
| 2. Robert Foote – 1607/08 * | * # 125063269 |
| 3. Nathaniel Foote 1592 – 1644 (# 1) | # 28849438 |
| 4. Nathaniel Foote 1618/19 – 1654 (# 3) | # 65050886 |
| 5. Nathaniel Foote 1646 – 1702 (# 9) | # 392171190 |
| 6. Nathaniel Foote 1682 – 1774 (# 25) | # 6917101 |
| 7. Daniel Foote 1715/16 – 1801 (# 76) | # 6917102 |
| 8. Stephen Foote 1758 – 1843 (# 254) | # 6917108 |
| 9. Eli Foote 1793 – 1875 (# 820) | # 86985291 |
| 10. George Westley Foote 1843 – 1924 (# 1954 | # 45637154 |
| 11. Harold Oscar Foote 1884 – 1932 (# 3420) | # 45637181 |
| 12. Julia Leona Foote 1906 – 1978 | # 70157221 |
* – Foote Family Genealogy and History Vol. III, Book Two by Foote Family Association of America, Inc. dated 2011.
(# ____) – Genealogy numbers from Foote Family Genealogy and History Vol I & II by Abram W. Foote dated 1907 & 1932.
Getting Started
You can start using Find A Grave concept with our joint Foote family tree information. Then develop your own Foote family record and display us-ing the FIND A GRAVE concept where you branch off. If we are not related, you can develop your own family record.
The Find A Grave concept is presented in findagrave.com and it is a free site. Enter the site by clicking on the link that currently says: Search 132 million grave records. After the site is entered, you can explore to see what data is offered.
Enter one of the above memorial numbers (# 6917108 for Stephen Foote) in the memorial # box of the Find A Grave Search Form before searching. The resulting memorial page shows the current data on the individual (Stephen Foote).
Under “family links”, you can click on parents, spouse, and children that will transfer you to the family of the individual person’s memorial page (Stephen Foote). When you start a new search, always enter only the known memorial number for a fast search under “begin a new search”.
Another Method
There is a method to determine all the Foote family that is presently in the system by clicking on the left side of the memorial page for each area (the cemetery of the memorial page, town, county, state, and then find a grave). This type of search can also be done when you are in another family memorial page.
You can also search a specific cemetery under “cemetery search”. You need to know the cemetery name and location (state, county and town). When the cemetery is found, you can see all the names that are in the system for that cemetery.
The data in the system is the result of many people entering names and information they find in viewing and recording a graveyard with headstones or in the graveyard office records. The resulting data is then used to create an individual Find A Grave Memorial.
The name of the person who created the memorial is shown along with the creation date. Each memorial has a specific number and cemetery of burial. The person who created the memorial can make changes to the memorial based on the edit feature that contains information received from other people. This could include actual dates and location of birth and death that were not on the grave stone; individual biographical data; family links and burial plot location.
A grave memorial can be transferred to another person to maintain the memorial. This process adds new information to the data base daily. Therefore, I revisit my memorial pages to determine if there are changes to a memorial page. I also revisit the cemetery page for Foote family grave additions in the cemetery Find A Grave data base.
An individual can add a gravestone photo or request a photo since many memorials do not have a gravestone photo. A flower and a note can be added to the memorial.
Cross Check the Data You Find
Be sure to cross check all the data that is shown on each memorial sheet. Many people can inadvertently place false information on the memorial page. However here is a chance to see what is written in stone and placed in what cemetery. Sometimes the actual cemetery plot location is recorded. That helps when you visit the cemetery to see the grave site.
I visited the Wethersfield Village Cemetery, Wethersfield, CT during the 2009 Return to Wethersfield Foote Family reunion. I now know why there are no Nathaniel Foote grave stones in the cemetery for the above listed first three Nathaniel Foote. I visited the Linwood Cemetery, Colchester, CT and saw the grave stones for the above fourth Nathaniel through Stephen Foote. I have visited all the above remaining Foote grave sites that are located in Michigan. This experience has helped me to better understand my ancestors.
Information placed on the memorial page that is in addition of what is written in stone is not acceptable for documentation unless the source is given for each name, date, and place. I have not seen a description of the data source stated on the memorial sites.
I first placed the find a grave memorial pages in a notebook with all my other information for an individual family tree. I now have the memorial pages for each family in a separate family notebook. For the Foote notebook, the first page is “Descendants of John Foote” from Family Tree Maker.
The second page is the direct generation name list with their memorial numbers as shown above. I then inserted the generation number with each memorial page that I discovered or created. It is easy to display the information and provides the process to expand the memorials for aunts and uncles of each generation as desired. The Foote memorial notebook was well received at the 2015 Salt Lake City Foote Family convention.
I have three other family memorial trees in the find a grave system that have gaps due to missing generational data that are not in the system. I anticipate that these gaps may be smaller in the future.
Thanks to Charles Gilbert for his contribution.