I’ll post my thought process and samples, as I’m always happy for collaboration! (and now, a long post… 
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(As an aside, the EE chapter references in the existing source templates were throwing me off at first, as they didn’t match what is in my Kindle book. Comparing with the chapter list on the EE web site, it appears that the 4th edition (2024) inserted a new chapter. Between old Chapter 2. Fundamentals of Citation and old Chapter 3 Archives & Artifacts, there is now a new Chapter 3: Building a Citation; subsequent chapters are advanced by 1—e.g., Chapter 6: Census Records is now Chapter 7, etc.)
Since this is the first edition of EE I’ve owned, I can’t speak directly to the content of what was in the older versions. Section 5.16 Images: markers & plaques is now section 6.16 Gravestone Images & Memorial Pages Online, and has the following specific examples for Billion Graves and Find a Grave:
Jason’s original template has all the same information about a memorial that the newer EE example presents, albeit with slightly different phrasing. As a starting point, here’s an example from my database using Jason’s template with no changes:
Footnote: Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 11 January 2025), memorial page for Laura Mullins, Find A Grave Memorial # 140098297, citing Maysville Cemetery (Maysville, Mason, Kentucky), memorial created by Debbie J, photograph by genealogyfever.
Short footnote: Find a Grave, Laura Mullins, Find A Grave Memorial # 140098297.
Bibliography: Find a Grave. Database and images. https://www.findagrave.com : 2025.
… And now here’s the same information as it would be presented in my updated template:
Footnote: Find A Grave, database with images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/140098297 : 3 July 2023), “Laura Mullins” (1892–1971) memorial created by “DebbieJ” (Find a Grave ID 46890655), with tombstone image by “genealogyfever”; citing Maysville Cemetery, Maysville, Mason, Kentucky. Aside from the dates on the gravestone, the other personal details asserted on the memorial page are not supported by evidence.
Short footnote: Find A Grave, imaged gravestone for “Laura Mullins” (1892–1971).
Bibliography: Find A Grave. Database with images. https://www.findagrave.com : 2023.
The relevant changes in the new EE edition appear to be:
- Names of the memorialized, the creator, and the photographer are in quotes. A lot of the memorials I have logged use a login name or alias, so I was already putting those in quotes any ways. EE points out that even if it looks like a valid name, the name on the memorial page, and/or what may be on the marker, aren’t necessarily the actual name of the memorialized. In my personal example above, “Laura Mullins” birth name is “Laura Bell Allison”. EE therefore points out, “Many memorial pages for people of the past carry inaccurate and exaggerated names that are not supported by either an imaged grave marker or any other document. Copying those names into your records, and adopting them indiscriminately, will lead your research astray.”
- The “citing” phrase is bolded. In EE’s QuickStart Guide (p. 8), Mills states “Websites also republish material that originated in print—presenting two entities that need citing: the original publication and the website. For these, we create a layered citation in which a semicolon separates the layers. Below and on the following page, each layer carries different shading to distinguish between them: […]”. Since the cemetery and the Find a Grave web site are two different entities, I believe this is meant to indicate the layering for the cemetery.
To support this, I capture three additional pieces of information from the Find a Grave memorial: the birth date, death date, and creator’s ID number.
@kevync1985 I’ve found that when I recorded the Memorial Page as you have, I couldn’t necessarily remember whether those were definitive dates for the actual person or only what was noted on the memorial page. So since Find a Grave notes birth and death dates—which, as I’m sure we’ve all seen, aren’t necessarily accurate—I want to log them as discrete pieces of information.
As far as the Creator # goes, EE doesn’t show that piece of information in their examples. I have (though very rarely) found memorial pages that have no creator name shown and only report the id. Given that a person can change their “public name” on the site, I actually think the creator ID is a more accurate piece of information (but more on that later).
So on to the actual templates:
Footnote
<i>[WebsiteTitle]</i>, <[ItemType:lower]|database with images> ([URL]/memorial//<[FaG]> : [AccessDate]), "<[memorial]>" ([bDate:Year]–[dDate:Year])<<?[createdby][createdbyID]| memorial created by <?[createdby]|"[createdby]<?[createdbyID]|" (<i>Find a Grave</i> ID [createdbyID])<, with tombstone image by "[photoby]">|<," with tombstone image by "[photoby]"|">>|<i>Find a Grave</i> ID [createdbyID]<, with tombstone image by "[photoby]">>|>>; <b>citing <[cmtrynm]><, [cmtryloc]>.</b> Aside from the dates on the gravestone, the other personal details asserted on the memorial page are not supported by evidence.
Short Footnote
<i>[WebsiteTitle]</i>, <?[photoby]|imaged gravestone|memorial> for "<[memorial]>" ([bDate:Year]–[dDate:Year]).
Bibliography
<i>[WebsiteTitle]</i>. <[ItemType:Caps]|Database with images>. [URL] : [AccessDate:Year].
Some things to note:
- On the Source Template, the fieldnames follow the same naming as Jason Crews’s “EE-FindAGrave” template. The added fields are [createdbyID], [bDate], and [dDate]
- I opted to follow exactly what was show in EE re: the memorial ID, namely that it was shown as part of the URL. EE states, “If you choose to use the URL of the website’s home page, rather than a specific URL, then your citation must identify the individual’s memorial number.” If you choose to not use it as part of the URL, I would replace
memorial created with memorial # [FaG] created (and remove /memorial//<[FaG]> after the [URL]).
- On the other hand, the footnote template I have detailed has one departure from EE’s example: including the creator’s Find a Grave ID after the creator’s name. I’ve include a alternate footnote template below if you decide you don’t need/want to include that ID.1
- Re: the footnote template… Yes, I know the template sentence which renders the creator, creator ID and photographer is a bit ugly. But it accommodates any combination of the three fields’ existence. It’s also complicated by one small thing, namely that in American English punctuation, if the photographer phrase would immediately follow the creator name, then the name needs a comma inside the quotes (e.g., “DebbieJ,”). Elsewhere English (British, Australian), punctuation goes outside the quotes (generally speaking).2 My personal preference would be to put the period outside the quotes, as it would make the logic in the sentence template a bit less complicated; this is also tempered by the fact that my day job involves programming, and strings are delimited by quotes (thus anything inside quotes is considered part of the string—in my example, the creator is “DebbieJ” not “DebbieJ,”).
- Following on the above, if there is no creator nor creator ID, then that entire section of the sentence is not rendered, even if a photographer does exist. (Can a Find a Grave even have a memorial without a creator or creator ID???)
- Similarly, in the short footnote, the text changes slightly if there is no photograph of the marker on the memorial page for that person (“imaged gravestone for XYZ” vs. “memorial for XYZ”).
- The last sentence in the template is included as a disclaimer in the EE example, as a disclaimer of sorts that anything other than a picture of the marker itself would not be considered an authoritative source (separate from the fact that grave markers themselves can be incorrect as well).
Whew! I think that’s it 
Sorry for the length, but that programming schtick from the day job carries over into my other activities, at least when it comes to documentation. I look forward to hearing anyone’s comments or critiques!
1 Alternate Footnote template without the creator’s Find a Grave ID:
Footnote
<i>[WebsiteTitle]</i>, <[ItemType:lower]|database with images> ([URL]/memorial//<[FaG]> : [AccessDate]), "<[memorial]>" ([BirthDate:Year]–[DeathDate:Year])<?[createdby]| memorial created by "[createdby]<," with tombstone image by "[photoby]"|">|>; <b>citing <[cmtrynm]><, [cmtryloc]>.</b> Aside from the dates on the gravestone, the other personal details asserted on the memorial page are not supported by evidence.
2 You can read about the phenomenon, also called “logical punctuation” or “logical quotation” here: Wikipedia:Logical quotation on Wikipedia - Wikipedia.
