Updating Family Information on Findagrave.com

This week I have been working with findagrave.com for my Tidd family in Holliston, Massachusetts. They were posted with some pictures, with limited and some inaccurate information. By contacting the creator of the postings, the same person for each of the four entries, we were able to update the information on burials that occurred from 1806 to the 1850s. When he created the postings he was using the cemetery burial information, of which there are various versions. I have researched this family for over forty years and have the vital records information plus family recorded information. This process also caused me to verify some of the facts and update my database. We even added the wife of the Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Tidd. The best result of this process was the inclusion of my contact information for those researching this family.

Holliston Central Cemetery, Holliston, Massachusetts. The church is behind the town hall building.

Several years ago my brother in law was in Massachusetts and I asked if he might go to the cemetery in Holliston to take pictures of the gravestones for the Tidd family. He took my list and then located many of the headstones. They were carefully photographed, transcribed and noted on a plot map. The families were Tidd, Daniels and Stedman, and he recorded their gravestones in the same manner. The following are the two gravestones for the Tidd family.

Gravestone marker for Daniel Tidd died 21 June 1806 and his daughter Miss Betsey Tidd died 15 December 1815. No marker is found for his wife Mrs. Anna Tidd died 14 July 1857. They are buried in the Holliston Central Cemetery in Holliston, Massachusetts. Notice the Sons of the American Revolution medallion in front of the marker.

Gravestone marker for Willis Richmond Tidd died 3 October 1855 and Elmon C. Tidd died 19 June 1853. They are buried in the Holliston Central Cemetery in Holliston, Massachusetts. The marker was created after the death of the second son. It might appear that Willis is spelled Willie, but according to all records his name was Willis. Their brother born 10 August 1855 was named Elmon Willis, which might seem odd, as his younger brother did not die until two months after his birth. One might wonder if the older brother was perhaps sickly and not expected to live much longer.

Holliston, Massachusetts Congregational Church when the Tidd family lived there from 1775 to 1860. The family first resided on the boarder of Holliston and Hopkinton where they lived during the Revolutionary War. Later they moved to Holliston, living in a home in the center of the town.


I contacted Hester Chesmore in 2007, at the Chesmore Funeral Home in Holliston, looking for information on Mrs. Anna Tidd Chapin. She could not find anything. This week I looked on the Holliston Historical Society website and found a list of burials which included the family burials with plot numbers. Rather than four entries for the Tidd surname they had five, including one for Mrs. Anna Tidd buried next to her husband and daughter.  When I checked before Hester said the records were in the basement, so I am assuming they might still be at the Holliston Office. With the new information I need to make another phone call.

Here is the basic data on this family found in the list of burials.

These burials occurred in the Central Burying Ground next to the church:

Name               Plot Number             Date            Relationship

Tidd, Daniel Mr., P140, (21 June 1806, RW ancestor)
Tidd (Chapin), Anna Mrs., P142, (14 Jul 1857, RW ancestor's wife)
Tidd, Betsey Miss, P141, (15 Dec 1815, RW ancestor's daughter, 2nd by this name)
Tidd, Elmon, A101, (19 Jun 1853, RW ancestor's great grandson, son of Daniel and Sarah Jane Tidd)
Tidd, Willis, A100, (3 Oct 1855, RW ancestor's great grandson, son of Daniel and Sarah Jane Tidd)

Loomis, Betsey Anne Tidd, X13, (31 Oct 1850, RW ancestor's granddaughter, daughter of Daniel and Betsey Anne Tidd)

Other burials not listed, but according to family information individuals are buried in the Holliston Central Cemetery:

Tidd, Betsey (2 Oct 1793, RW ancestor daughter, 1st by this name)

Tidd, Betsy Anne Richmond (19 May 1852, RW son Daniel's wife)

Merrill, Sarah Richmond Tidd (2 Apr 1853, RW granddaughter, daughter of Daniel and Betsey Anne Tidd, died shortly after her marriage to George Merrill and is found in the Holliston death records listed as Sarah Tidd)

Though my work on the Tidd family and collateral lines is far from complete, I have polished up some of the details. Findagrave.com is a wonderful resource and it is important that we help to document the information found there. In the process I used the vital records on familysearch.org and found digitized death records for Sarah Tidd and Elmon C. Tidd. In the past I used the microfilms for the vital records for this town and the published indexes of those records. My serendipity moment came when I found the listing for the burial for Mrs. Anna Tidd on the Holliston Historical Society website. By returning to previously visited sites on the web I have located numerous records for additional documentation of family events.

Are you working on cleaning up the details found for your families online? Complaining about misinformation or inaccurate details is not productive. We need to take the time to contact the submitters and share the correct information. Then we can request that our contact information be made available for others who come across these resources. Check out findagrave.com for your ancestors.