General Chat

If the Ohio cem has a page on findagrave, post a request there. The volunteers are really good!

Thanks guys for your suggestions.

I had checked Findagrave, but no records there.

The webite that I went through was a site linked to Ancestry, and was for a cemetery in OHIO. It appears genuine and says free lookups. I obviously don't know for sure if it is a scam or not, but one minute they said they have a disability so it is too hard to write information out, the next they say they can print pages out....oh well.

Piglets Pal, I'll look on the net and see if there is a family history group near there.

Thanks all

Findagrave website which is mainly US cems, does say that some volunteers may ask for expenses. Could your contact fall into this catagory?

On the other hand, the person who kindly took photos on my behalf, (same web site as above) didn't ask for a penny (or cent lol)

For those people who may be considering sending small amounts of money abroad, you may want to consider using Pay Pal, as long as the recipient also has an account. There are charges invloved, and the exchange rate may be a little lower/higher than hoped for, but it's away out of it. You could also consider sending an Amazon gift voucher in the local currency, if that is acceptable.

Hi Amazing,
As others have said this is a sham site. however I have come agross a site on Ancestry.co.uk in which a David Strickland has a large collection of Grave yard inscriptions from agross America for which he does not charge anything. I have obtained some photos from him and the quality is very good. As with all such offers however please exercise caution. I have no reason at present to doubt this contact, good luck, Kenneth

I paste the following: from Ancestry.co.uk
David Strickland photographed this gravestone in the Woodland Cemetery, Kirvin, Freestone Co., Texas. Feel free to use the picture for your personal records.

This is one of the 214,038 cemetery photos free for your personal use at http://teafor2.com
If you have more info, please reply here rather than emailing me because this is not my family

Vanessa,

Why not post the website here on the boards with a warning so no one else gets caught my them. I'm sure there are enough members on the boards to keep nudging it up so others don't get caught out.

I'm really pleased to here that you went to the police and lets hope they manage to catch the people behind the scam.

Gai

Thanks Vanessa, no I won't be doing it. I must admit I felt sorry for them and thought maybe $4.00 would not be too much, but you are right, if everyone paid that amount it would all add up!

Thanks

Rachelle

Gai,

Yes I live in Oz too and did report it to the police who are actually looking into it as there have been numerous complaints about the particular site I was on. This is actually being handled by the international fraud squad set up for these tasks based in Canberra.

So here's hoping that other wont be caught like I was. The problen with sort of sites is they collect funds, close the site and then set up another one. That is one of the reasons I stick to the more reputable sites now, at least I get what I pay for.

thank you for your concern
Vanessa

Vanessa,

I don't know where you live but it might be worthwhile going to the police or if you have a tv program here that might take up the cause.

Here in Oz we have a couple of current affairs shows which follow these kinds of stories up. When you think about how many people they could be collecting money from they could be rolling in cash from people like yourself who are on a limited income.

Gai

Thanks Vanessa, that is exactly what the website said, that information supplied would be free.

I don't mind paying, I just didn't know about it first so I thought it was a bit odd.

Thanks for the warning!

Hi Amazing ..

Dont pay them as this is a sham. I too was asked for money after contacting a website in USA for information on family members. They say the info is for free and when you dont hear from them and you send another message asking what has happened with the information being sought they give you this big sob story about the researchers.

If they want money for the information then it should be quoted up front not through the back door. I sent the money and am still waiting for the information. I have tried to message them again but I have now been blocked. It as you say was not a large amount of money, but when you are on a pension it is. I allocate a certain amount of funds each month for my research and that was about half of my allocation wasted.

So dont pay them.

Vanessa

Hi everyone,

Just wondering if anyone could pelase give me some ideas or thoughts on the best way to progress.

I found some relatives on a website for a cemetery in the US. The website had an email address that you could correspond with and they would do a look up and send relevant information to you.

Anyway two months pass and no reply, then today I get one asking for some money as the person doing it has a hand disability and once they have the money they will send a copy of the information through to me.

It is US 4 dollars so I guess not a great deal, I'm in Australia so about $8 dollars. I'm not sure of the best way of how to send money overseas, if anyone has done this before etc?

Any ideas...?