Find a Grave Memorial Opt-Out (2026 Guide)

Find a Grave is a site of cemetery memorials added by its members. Its help center says the site's purpose is to catalog and make available final disposition information, and each memorial has a manager, listed at the bottom of the memorial page. Whether you can get a memorial taken down depends on whose it is:

A memorial for someone who is alive, including you. Find a Grave says memorials for living people are not acceptable, and that they will be removed when the person or a family member asks.
A memorial a stranger made for your relative. Only the member who added a memorial can delete it with a button. A close relative can ask for the memorial to be transferred to them, then edit it, or ask Find a Grave to delete it. Find a Grave reviews those deletion requests case by case.
A memorial that names you as a survivor. Find a Grave asks people who build memorials from obituaries and other third-party accounts not to add information about living people, such as survivors, and reserves the right to edit any biography. You can suggest an edit that takes your details out.

Checked against Find a Grave's help center articles "Creating Memorials," "Bio Field Information," "Edit or Delete a Memorial," "Request to Manage," "Memorials for those who are recently deceased" and "Suggest Edits" (none shows a date), its contact form (we did not fill it in), Ancestry's privacy statement (effective May 12, 2026), Google's help page on refreshing outdated content and California's data broker registry, on October 27, 2026. We read the pages; we did not search for anyone or submit anything.

What Find a Grave will and won't do

It removes memorials for living people. The "Creating Memorials" article says memorials for living people shouldn't be added, but if they have been, they will be removed when a family member or the individual contacts the manager and requests removal.
Only the creator can delete a memorial directly. The "Edit or Delete a Memorial" article says the member who added a memorial deletes it with Delete Memorial at the bottom of the page. If someone else created it and then transferred it to you, you contact Find a Grave to request deletion; it says it reviews these case by case and is sensitive to family members' requests.
It transfers memorials to close relatives. The "Request to Manage" article says that if you are related within its guidelines and the manager is not family, the manager must transfer the memorial to you.
It asks contributors to leave living people out. Both the "Creating Memorials" and "Bio Field Information" articles ask people who copy obituaries to refrain from adding information about living people, such as survivors, to protect their privacy.
It doesn't control search engines. Find a Grave says a removed memorial can still show up in search results for a while, and that it can't control what search engines display.

If the memorial is for someone who is alive

The help center acknowledges that it can be hard to tell while transcribing a cemetery, and asks contributors to check the dates on the stone and not create a memorial for anyone who could reasonably be alive. It also says a memorial should not be added for someone whose death hasn't been confirmed or who hasn't been declared deceased.

Open the memorial on findagrave.com and copy its web address.
Select Suggest Edits on the memorial, scroll down and click Contact Manager.
Say that the person is living, how you are related to them (or that it is you), and that you are asking for the memorial to be removed. Send the message.
If there isn't a Contact Manager button, use Find a Grave's contact form (below) and include the link to the memorial, your relationship and your request, as the help center asks.

A suggested wording:

> I am [the person named on this memorial / the (relationship) of the person named]. [Name] is alive. The memorial is at [link]. Find a Grave's help center says memorials for living people will be removed when the individual or a family member asks. Please remove it.

One exception. Find a Grave allows a "pre-need" memorial that a living person creates for themselves, provided a pre-need headstone is already in place in a cemetery, with a note at the top of the biography saying the person is still living. If you made one and want it gone, you are its creator, so Delete Memorial at the bottom of the page should be available to you.

If a stranger made a memorial for your relative

Find a Grave's help center doesn't describe a way for a relative to have someone else's memorial deleted directly. The route it does describe is to become the manager first.

If your relative died within the past year. The "Memorials for those who are recently deceased" article covers non-famous memorials added after January 11, 2022. When someone who is not a close relative adds one, it shows limited information to others for the first three months after the death date. For up to a year from the death date, a Manage option shows on the memorial. A close relative can click Manage, add their relationship and become the manager.

Otherwise, ask the manager to transfer it.

Check that you qualify. The "Request to Manage" article lists child, spouse or partner, sibling, parent, grandchild, great-grandchild, grandparent, great-grandparent, niece or nephew, great-niece or nephew, aunt or uncle, great-aunt or uncle, and first cousin, including adoptive, step and in-law versions. It says more distant relatives don't qualify.
On the memorial, select Suggest Edits, scroll down and click Contact Manager.
Explain your relationship and ask for the memorial to be transferred to you. Tick the box to send yourself a copy. The article says the message reaches the member even if their profile shows no email address.
If the manager refuses or doesn't answer within a reasonable time, contact Find a Grave and forward your copy of the message. The article says Find a Grave will then contact the manager once more and ask for a response within a week.

A suggested wording:

> I am the [relationship] of [name], whose memorial is at [link]. Under Find a Grave's Request to Manage guidelines, I am asking you to transfer management of this memorial to me.

Once you manage it. You can change it with Edit under the name, dates and location. To have it taken down, contact Find a Grave and ask for deletion: the "Edit or Delete a Memorial" article says that for a memorial someone else created and transferred to you, Find a Grave reviews deletion requests case by case and is sensitive to family members' requests.

Some memorials can't be transferred. Find a Grave says memorials listed as famous are a special collection it curates, and it will not transfer them. A memorial managed by Find a Grave itself (not famous) can be requested through the request to manage button on the Suggest Edits page. The articles also say new accounts may hit a limit on transfers; if that happens with a relative's memorial, contact support with the memorial ID, your relationship and your request.

Managing a memorial means having a Find a Grave account: the help center says the memorial is transferred to your account.

If a memorial names you as a survivor

Find a Grave's "Bio Field Information" article asks people who memorialize the deceased from newspapers and other accounts to refrain from adding information about living people, such as survivors, to protect their privacy. It says Find a Grave reserves the right to edit any biography to conform to its standards.

Open the memorial and select Suggest Edits.
In the Biography field, suggest the text without the details about you.
Add a short note, for example: "This biography names living people, including me. Find a Grave's Bio Field Information article asks people who copy obituaries and other third-party accounts not to add information about living people, such as survivors." Then click Save Suggestions.

The "Suggest Edits" article says the manager accepts or declines the edit, and that after 21 days, an edit that hasn't been declined goes to Find a Grave's own edit queue. If it is declined, the article suggests sending the edit again with a note; if that fails too, use the contact form and point to the Bio Field Information article.

The help center doesn't say outright whether Suggest Edits or Contact Manager need a Find a Grave account, though it describes suggesters getting notifications and a "Suggestions I've Sent" list, which points to one. If you'd rather not make one, the contact form below didn't ask us to sign in.

The contact form

Find a Grave's contact form is at support.findagrave.com/hc/en-us/requests/new. It asks for:

your email address, twice
a topic, chosen from a list
a subject and a description
attachments, if you want them (up to 5 files per upload)

Include the memorial's link, your relationship to the person and exactly what you want: removal of a living person's memorial, a transfer, deletion, or an edit. If you are following up with a manager who didn't answer, attach or paste your copy of the message. The form says a member of the support staff will respond as soon as possible.

What a removal covers

The memorial on Find a Grave. That is what the help center describes removing or editing.
Not search engine copies, at first. The "Edit or Delete a Memorial" article says search engines keep cached copies, and recommends contacting the search engine.
Not copies other people kept. Ancestry's privacy statement, which covers Find a Grave, says that if you have shared information with other users, Ancestry can't remove copies they have kept; only they can, if you ask them.
Not obituaries elsewhere. Find a Grave allows memorials built from newspaper obituaries. If the same notice is on an obituary site such as Echovita, ask that site separately.

How long does it take?

The help center gives no timeframe for removing a living person's memorial or for a deletion request. When Find a Grave steps in on a refused transfer, it asks the manager to respond within a week. A suggested edit that the manager hasn't declined goes to Find a Grave's edit queue after 21 days.

If it doesn't work

Use the contact form again. Include the memorial link, your relationship, what you asked for and when.
Write to Ancestry's privacy office. Find a Grave's footer links to Ancestry's privacy statement, which lists Find a Grave as one of its brands. For U.S. privacy requests it gives usprivacyrequests@ancestry.com and Ancestry.com Operations, L.P., Attn: Privacy Office, 42 Future Way, Suite 400, Draper, UT 84020. It says Ancestry considers requests to remove personal information from its searchable indexes case by case, may ask for a copy of a government-issued ID for emailed requests, and lets an authorized agent file with your signed permission.
Clear the old search result. Once the memorial is gone or changed, Google may still show the old version. Google's Refresh outdated content tool is for content that has been removed from a site but still appears in Google Search: click Request refresh, enter the page's address and submit. See how to remove your home address from Google search results for the wider picture.

Find a Grave isn't one of the sites in Defynta's free scan, and Defynta doesn't file requests with it: this one is do-it-yourself.

Who runs Find a Grave. Ancestry. Find a Grave's footer links to Ancestry's privacy statement and terms, and the privacy statement names Find a Grave as one of Ancestry's related brands. We did not find Ancestry or Find a Grave on California's data broker registry (searched October 27, 2026), so a registry-based request is not a route here. File directly.

A relative's other listings

A memorial is one record of someone who has died; people-search sites often keep another. How to remove a deceased relative's listing from data brokers covers the documents those sites ask for and the order to work in.

How to remove a deceased relative's listing from data brokers
Echovita, an obituary site with a family removal form
Archives.com, another Ancestry genealogy site, with its own opt-out
How to remove your home address from Google search results
Where data brokers get your information

Full list: the master opt-out guide.

Frequently asked questions

Can I delete a Find a Grave memorial someone else made?

Not directly. Only the member who added a memorial can delete it with the button. A close relative can ask for the memorial to be transferred, then ask Find a Grave to delete it; Find a Grave says it reviews those requests case by case and is sensitive to family members' requests. The exception is a memorial for someone who is alive, which Find a Grave says will be removed on request.

Someone made a memorial for me, and I'm alive. What do I do?

Ask the manager through Suggest Edits and Contact Manager, or, if there is no Contact Manager button, use Find a Grave's contact form with the link, your relationship and your request. The help center says memorials for living people will be removed when the individual or a family member asks.

Who counts as a close relative?

Child, spouse or partner, sibling, parent, grandchild, great-grandchild, grandparent, great-grandparent, niece or nephew, great-niece or nephew, aunt or uncle, great-aunt or uncle, and first cousin, including adoptive, step and in-law versions, according to the "Request to Manage" article.

What if the manager doesn't answer?

Contact Find a Grave and forward your copy of the message you sent. It says it will contact the manager once more and ask for a response within a week.

Can I get my name taken out of a relative's biography?

You can suggest the edit. Find a Grave asks people who copy obituaries not to add information about living people, such as survivors, and reserves the right to edit any biography.

Does it cost anything?

None of the pages we read mention a fee for these requests.

A memorial can name the living relatives someone leaves behind; people-search sites can list their addresses. See which of the sites we track list you with a free Defynta scan.