The same day as the Uvalde school shooting, an end-user on FindAGrave.com published the Uvalde victims' memorials, with their full names and vital statistics. The families of the victims had no time to process this horrific event before someone posted memorials and photos of their loved ones. 

This not only happened with Uvalde, but also with the other recent rash of domestic terrorism. 

This re-victimization of the families needs to stop. 

FindaGrave.com's own guidelines state: "When adding memorials for those who are recently deceased, if you are not a family member and it is too soon for the burial information to be known, please wait until the burial information is known to create the memorial," and "be sensitive to family members" (https://support.findagrave.com/s/article/Memorials-for-those-who-are-recently-deceased). However, FindaGrave.com did not enforce their own "suggestions," since the above are not "rules."

The creator(s) of these memorials not only acted in an unethical and immoral manner, but also broke Federal copyright laws by posting photos of the victims from the news outlets without permission, and committed fraud when they stated the place of burial before the bodies had even reached the morgue.

The genealogical community is outraged, and wants FindAGrave.com and their owner, Ancestry.com, to update their terms of service by taking the following steps:

1.) Ban the user(s) who created these memorials.

2.) Do not allow memorials to be posted within 90 days of the death, unless the contributor is immediate family.

3.) Do not to allow anything to be posted about a minor’s death for a period of at least one year, unless the contributor is immediate family (i.e., parent or sibling).

4.) Eliminate showing the number of memorials created and/or managed on end-users' profiles. 

5.) Do not allow memorials to be created from only an obituary (this includes death notices on the web pages of funeral homes).

6.) Do not allow memorials to be created without a headstone, marker, or documentation from the cemetery office.

Please lend your support by signing, and let's force FindAGrave and Ancestry to act in a compassionate manner to the victims' families!

For additional information on this topic, please see:

https://support.findagrave.com/s/article/Memorials-for-those-who-are-recently-deceased

https://www.legalgenealogist.com/2022/05/31/ancestry-this-ones-on-you/

https://dna-explained.com/2022/06/02/find-a-grave-owned-by-ancestry-seriously-just-stop-incentivizing-the-creation-of-memorials-of-the-recently-deceased/

https://thedanielsgenealogy.medium.com/slow-and-steady-1c48de763b19