BillionGraves.com Follow-Up

Hi everyone, hope you all had a great July 4th weekend. I just wanted to post a quick follow-up to my May 26th posting for BillionGraves.com.

BillionGraves was originally released as an iPhone app. However they have recently released an app for the Android phones. You can find it in the Marketplace under Billion Graves Camera (Android app or iPhone app). I downloaded the Android app the day it was released and took it out for a short test drive. The app lets you take GPS marked pictures and upload them to the BillionGraves website. I will have to say that I am using an LG Ally phone. My experience may not be representative of all GPS enabled phones.

The app was very easy to use. In order to get the best photographs of the gravesites you need to make sure that there are no debris on the graves and that you are not causing a shadow. You also need to make sure your phone's GPS is turned on and working properly. A couple times as I was preparing to take a photo, the phone warned me that the GPS signal was weak. This usually happened while I was standing under a tree. I found this problem easy to resolve by moving the phone a little bit to improve the signal.

I especially like the ability to upload the images right after the pictures are taken. The app gives you the capability to auto upload and auto delete the images so they don't take up critical memory. I found that by the time I got home all the photos were on the website and ready for me to transcribe.

Does this mean I won't be using FindAGrave.com any more? Of course not. But I didn't have the photos since they were all deleted from the phone. So what did I do? I was able to open BillionGraves and FindAGrave in two windows and save the photos from BillionGraves to my computer and then upload them to FindAGrave in just a couple mouse clicks.

I think this app will revolutionize peoples' ability to index cemeteries. We are already planning on having a bunch of Boy Scouts index a nearby cemetery with their smart phones and tablets as an Eagle project.

I hope everyone has a great weekend and maybe you can test the app on your own.

TreeSeek.com

As we move into this Memorial Day weekend we are reminded to look back on all those who have sacrificed so much for the freedoms we enjoy today. Starting with our Revolutionary War soldiers and ending with those who are currently fighting in far away lands like Iraq and Afghanistan, we need to thank them all for what we have. Besides the backyard cookouts and parades, many people will be visiting the cemeteries of their veteran family members and contemplating their sacrifices. Many more of these cemeteries are being indexed online everyday. In my last blog I discussed BillionGraves.com and their work to geocode all the headstones of the cemeteries. Today I want to discuss the burial records found at TreeSeek.com.

Treeseek.com is an affiliate web site with FamilySearch.org. This website has several very interesting applications. First of all, since it is an affiliate of FamilySearch, it is able to use data that has been contributed to new.familysearch.org (nFS). The site is also able to use data from Geni.com. In order to use the functions on this website you must have a valid new.FamilySearch.org account or an account at Geni.com. I have not used Geni.com so I will focus my discussion on the ability to link to nFS. There is an expectation that new.FamilySearch.org will be open to the public sometime around 2013.

What does TreeSeek do with the FamilySearch data?

First of all, it allows you to create a variety of genealogy charts, including 9 and 10 generation pedigrees, 9 generation fan chart, and name clouds. To begin with you can select an individual in your immediate family or enter the PID number of another person in your tree. Once you have your starting person you can then select the type of chart to produce. The charts come out as hyperlinked pdf files so you can click on individuals in the tree and open a window with nFS to see the family pedigree.

The site also has a World Cemetery Map. The World Cemetery Map allows you to select a country or state and zoom in on a Google Map to see the cemeteries in an area. I found the US info to be good but there is a limit to what is available for other countries and some countries aren't even included in the list. So what can you do once you have located a cemetery on the map? I selected Ohio as my region and found that there are 7343 cemeteries listed for the state. As I zoom in on Ohio the cemetery groupings start to separate out and eventually you will see individual cemeteries marked on the map. If you click on the cemetery marker you will see a pop-up bubble with the name of the cemetery and three hyperlinks. The links are for 1) FamilySearch Burials, 2) FamilySearch Research Wiki, and 3) FindAGrave.

The intent of the first link is to allow you to see everyone in nFS who is buried in that cemetery. However, I did notice a problem with that link. It seems that the burial information in nFS must match the standard place name used by TreeSeek. For example, I have relatives buried in Saint Augustines Cemetery, Minster, Auglaize, Ohio. I had entered them in nFS as being buried in St. Augustine Cemetery. That missing "s" and possibly the use of St. instead of Saint meant that no individuals came up with the search. So, I now have to go through my AncestralQuest file and do a universal change so all the references to St. Augustine Cemetery are in the standard format as Saint Augustines Cemetery, Jackson Township, Auglaize, Ohio. It isn't a real big deal but I will have to go and make sure that all those entries are now corrected when I sync my data to nFS in the future. Once I had a few of the entries corrected I was able to pull up a family buried in this cemetery. There are a couple interesting applications available once you have the individuals listed in the cemetery search. The first is that you can calculate the relationships between any individuals in the list. To do this, select one or two of the individuals and click on the "Find Close Relationships" button. I selected my grandfather and the site informed me of his spouse and parents being buried in the same cemetery. The second is the ability to change or add burial information to any individual in nFS from the site. To do this you just add their name and birth and death dates to the search, wait for the program to find the individual and then tell it to change or add the burial information. I would like the option to use the nFS PID for this search but the search works fine as it is and even listed some possible duplicates that I need to research later.

The second link, FamilySearch Research Wiki, will open up the FamilySearch Research Wiki site to the page that describes the cemetery you are interested in. I don't know how many cemeteries have been added to the Wiki so far, but none that I am using are there yet. Maybe this will inspire some people to begin adding more information to the Wiki site.

The last link on this page, opens up the FindAGrave page with a listing of all cemeteries of the same name. I had to search through eight listings but it was easy enough to find the cemetery I was interested in. Once you are at FindAGrave.com you can search through their burial records to see if there is anyone else of interest to you.

The last application that is found under the Tools section is a Relationship Calculator. You can enter the nFS PIDs for two individuals to see how they are related. This was pretty interesting when I tried it. I entered my father's grandfather and my mother's grandfather and ran the search. I expected the results to be that they were related through my parents marriage but I was surprised. It said they were 3rd cousins and they had the same g-g-g-grandmother! I never knew that.

So, what is my impression of this site? I was pleasantly surprised at the capabilities that were available. The reports produced by the site are limited but they are definitely useful. There are still some glitches such as some links don't work yet. Additionally, it relies on people inputting the standard format for the cemeteries in nFS. But with a little work this site will be an important addition to the nFS family of programs.

BillionGraves.com

Hi everyone, it is summer again here in the deep South. Almost 100 degrees the last couple days so I decided to stay inside and get some work done. That includes trying out some new websites.

I ran across a cool new site on the discussion boards today. It is BillionGraves.com. This site is meant to be an online searchable database of gravesites. You might be saying, "FindAGrave.com, Interment.net, and half a dozen other sites already do that. What's the big deal with this site?" You would be right about the first part, but there is something new on this site. The site is based on an iPhone app (sorry, no Android app yet but they say they are working on it). This allows the individual pictures to have GPS data associated with them so they can be mapped in Google Maps. You are able to see right where the grave is located in relation to the hundreds or thousands of other markers in the cemetery.

Being a new site, they have only a couple thousand pictures loaded in so far and it looks like most of the cemeteries are in Utah. But at least that is a start. Once the photos have been loaded to the website, you or another transcriber are able to fill in the names and dates on a form that appears with the photo. This is really simple to do and anyone who registers can act as a transcriber. There are about 2500 graves that need transcribing at the time I am writing this blog. I was able to transcribe about 50 in an hour (but I only use 2 fingers to type - imagine what I could do if I could use all 10 fingers typing).

This site has great potential and goes that extra step beyond the other grave indexing databases. As more and more people use their iPhones and, in the future, their Androids to photograph cemeteries the number of cemeteries in the database will increase. However, I do hope that those who take the pictures will consider adding them to the other sites also.

As the weather starts to get nicer around the country I hope more of you will get out there with your iPhones and iPads and start adding more cemeteries to this and other websites. Have fun, get some exercise, and enjoy the time outdoors.

Tombstone Tuesday - Weekly Genealogy Blogging Prompt #3

Participate in weekly blog themes: Tombstone Tuesday, Wordless Wednesday, etc. Many genealogy bloggers post photos of grave stones on Tombstone Tuesday or a photo worth 1,000 silent words on Wordless Wednesday. Participate in these informal events or invent your own.

A couple posts ago I wrote an article about Fannie Harris. You may remember, she was the one with the alligators in her picture. Well, today I want to write a little bit about her sister, my wife's 2nd great grandmother, Willie Mae Harris.

The gravestone to the right is about the only real record we have of her. What is so special about this picture is that everyone has told us that she was buried in an unmarked grave and there was no headstone. Well, I guess this picture proves them wrong.

The inscription states "Willie Harris wife of Andrew J Phares, born Nov 17 1862, died Dec 22 1909". This gravestone is located at Evergreen Cemetery in Jacksonville, Florida.

I really enjoy visiting cemeteries. Each time I go to a cemetery to find the resting place of my ancestors I try to take pictures of as many headstones as possible. There are two reasons for this. First, many of the cemeteries I visit are small town cemeteries and eventually you may find that a large number of the people located there are related. If you only took pictures of the stones marking the relatives you knew at the time you visited you would have to return later to get the ones you missed. The second reason is that these pictures may be useful to people who do not live in the area and would not be able to easily travel to gather this information. I try to submit all the photos that I take to various databases on the internet.

Since this post is focusing on tombstones I thought I would add a discussion of where you can find virtual graveyards online.

One of my favorite cemetery websites is Find-A-Grave (http://www.findagrave.com/). This site has over 29 million grave records indexed by name, location and cemetery. Each of these records is contributed by a volunteer who has visited the gravesites. I have provided hundreds of photographs for the area of Auglaize and Mercer County, Ohio. All of the pictures that are provided have to be reduced in size to less than 250K so you will have to process your pictures before you send them in.

Another site that I have enjoyed using in the past is the Genealogy.com Virtual Cemetery (http://genealogy.com/VG/vcem_search.html). I used to use this site quite a bit in the past but have not used it much since Ancestry bought them out.

Interment.net (http://www.interment.net/) contains thousands of transcriptions of cemetery records and tombstone inscriptions, from cemeteries in the USA, Canada, England, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries.

The United States Department of Veterans Affairs maintains the National Veterans Gravesite Locator database (http://gravelocator.cem.va.gov/j2ee/servlet/NGL_v1). This site allows you to search for burial locations of veterans and their family members in VA National Cemeteries, state veterans cemeteries, various other military and Department of Interior cemeteries, and for veterans buried in private cemeteries when the grave is marked with a government grave marker. However, the site does not have information available for burials prior to 1997.

The American Battle Monuments Commission (http://www.abmc.gov/home.php) is another site that lists the graves of veterans. However, this site lists those that were interred outside the US or those that were listed as missing in action. The site has several databases pertaining to specific conflicts. These searchable databases are World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Mexican War, Civil War, and the Spanish-American War.

D'addezio.com provides the United States Cemeteries Database (http://daddezio.com/cemetery/junction/index.html). This site links to other websites that have indexes of individual cemeteries. You can search a list of cemeteries for each state to see if the one you are looking for is online.

Many states have their own gravesite webpages. The one I use most often is the Ohio Gravestone Project (http://ohiogravestones.org/). This site allows you to view cemeteries by county and provides images of the gravestones that have been contributed.

There are many more websites that provide easy access to graveyard information. Try a few of the ones that I mentioned and see if you can find some of your own and make sure to contribute the headstones that you have collected. Happy hunting.

Finding Records Online – Indiana

I took a few days off for the Christmas holiday, but now I am back again. We had wonderful weather here even though it was quite warm. It was in the upper 70s to low 80s everyday. It was perfect weather to do yard work and wash the car. Looking out my window right now I have chickadees, warblers and tufted titmice sitting at my bird feeder. 

Today’s blog will be back on my topic of state records. Indiana has a wealth of records online. Many of these records are available through the Indiana State Library. These databases can be found on the Indiana Memory Project website at http://www.in.gov/library. There is a Genealogy section under the Collections site. The Genealogy Collection includes several useful online databases such as Indiana Marriages Database pre-1850, Indiana Marriages Database 1993-2002, Indiana World War II Servicemen, Indianapolis Newspaper Index 1848-1991, Logansport Newspaper Index 1848-1855, Marion County Death Index 1925-1945, New Albany Newspaper Index 1849-1889, Vincennes Newspaper Index 1804-1827, and the Vital Information Exchange Database.  

In addition to the Indiana State Library databases, there are many that focus on specific counties or events. Some of the site I have found include: 

• Court Records (Clinton County) - http://genealogy.fcpl.accs.net/
• Hoosier Heritage Digital Library - http://www.hoosierheritage.net/
• County Histories (Fulton County) – includes marriages, deaths, and other records - http://www.fulco.lib.in.us/genealogy/fulcogenealogyfrontpage.htm
• Obituaries (Dekalb County) - http://obit.gpl.lib.in.us/
• Obituary Index (Elkhart County, Elkhart Truth) (1921-1937 & 1975) - http://www.elkhart.lib.in.us/cgi-bin/index5.pl?&file=obit_db.html
• Obituary Index (Clinton County) - http://www.accs.net/fcpl/obit.htm
• Obituary Index (Madison County) - http://www.alex.lib.in.us/obits2002/
• Obituary Index (Madison County) - http://historical.elwood.lib.in.us/obituaries.asp
• Obituary Index (Madison County, Anderson Daily Bulletin) (1921-1967) - http://www.and.lib.in.us/cemetery/obituary.shtml
• Obituaries (Marshall County, The Bremen Enquirer) (1884-1967) - http://www.bremen.lib.in.us/historical/bpl_obituaries.asp
• Obituary Index (Michigan City, LaPorte County) - http://www.mclib.org/obituary.htm
• Obituary Index (St. Joseph County) (1913-2005) - http://www.sjcpl.org/obits/search_form.php
• Obituary Collection (Vanderburgh County) - http://browning.evpl.org/
• Cemetery Index (Madison County) - http://www.and.lib.in.us/cemetery/cemeterysearch.shtml
• Cemetery Index (Montgomery County) - http://history.cdpl.lib.in.us/montcocem.html
• Cemetery Index (Montgomery County, Masonic Cemetery) - http://history.cdpl.lib.in.us/masonic.html
• Naturalization Records Index (Madison County) (1890-1958) - http://www.and.lib.in.us/cemetery/naturalization.shtml
• Allen County Digital Collections - http://www.acpl.lib.in.us/database/index/acpl_digital_library.html
• Newspapers (Evansville Press) - http://local.evpl.org/
• Military Service Notes (St. Joseph County) WW II, Vietnam, Korea - http://www.sjcpl.org/servicenotes/index.php  

US, British Commonwealth & German Veterans Gravesites

I am a little late for Veteran’s Day but it is never too late to remember your ancestors who fought in the various wars including WW I and WW II. This article will focus on some online databases which can be used to search for veterans from the British Commonwealth, United States and Germany who died during these wars.

I received the idea to write this article concerning war veterans from a friend of mine at work. He has been searching off and on without much luck, for his grandfather and other relatives who fought for the British Army during World War II. He asked me if I knew of any sites where he could find information on these veterans and frankly, I didn’t know of any right off hand. I had been able to find my relatives who died during WW I and WW II online a few years ago. Many of them happened to be Germans who had mostly died in France during the wars and their cemeteries had been indexed. This made some interesting reading even though none of it was written in English. I had also been able to find records for many of my ancestors from the United States who had fought in these wars. But I hadn’t tried to find any British records even though most of my wife’s ancestors are of British descent.

Well, a little research later and I am able to say that I have found an excellent website that contains details about the veterans from the British Commonwealth nations including Britain, Canada, Australia and others, who died during these wars. The site is managed by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and can be found at http://www.cwgc.org/. This site contains the records of over 1.7 million men and women who died during these wars and the 23,000 cemeteries they are buried in. The search screen is very intuitive and the results include name, rank, serial number, date of death, age, regiment, nationality, and cemetery. A detailed view is also available which may include names of family members and a description of the memorials that commemorate these brave men and women. You can also see lists of the veterans buried in each cemetery if you are interested. There are also histories of some battles, videos commemorating some of these veterans and educational materials on this site. Many of these materials can be used as educational materials to explain what life was like during those times.

There are many databases on the internet that provide information on US veterans. Most of you have probably heard of the Draft Registration Card indexes at Ancestry.com and KindredKonnections.com. But another site that I have used is the Nationwide Grave Locator run by the US Department of Veterans Affairs. This site is located at http://gravelocator.cem.va.gov/. The search screen is also very easy to use and it provides the details of veterans who have died since 1997. You can find the branch of service, dates of birth and death, and the location of the cemetery where the individual is buried.

While I am at it I might as well talk about the website that I used to discover my German war veterans also. This site is the Deutsche Gräbersuche Online and can be found at http://www.volksbund.de/graebersuche. The site includes records from 4.4 million veterans who died during the war. One thing to remember when using this site is that it is written completely in German. If you can’t read German, I suggest that you use one of the online services such as Google’s translator at http://translate.google.com/ to find your way around the site. This site asks you for your name and some other basic information before it allows you to search their records but all of the results are presented to you at no cost.

Have fun digging up your veterans!