Billiongraves.com

I slept and dreamt

That life was joy

I awoke and saw

That life was duty

I acted and behold

Duty was joy
       -Rabindranath Tagore

Hi everyone!

Welcome to this week's installment of the Welby 2nd Ward Family History Moment!  Spend just a moment and check out this tip to help with your family history.

I'm starting to get excited about our upcoming holiday to remember those who have given their lives for our country, as well as those ancestors who have gone before us.  My children have become very familiar with cemeteries as I have searched out gravestones to pay honor to my ancestors.  With that excitement, I thought I'd share some of the resources I have found to locate graves.

A more extensive list will follow next week, but this week we'll take a look at a new mobile device app called BillionGraves.  It combines GPS location data with pictures that users take of gravestones.  There are quite a few sites like this (without the GPS locations), but this particular company is partnering with FamilySearch to make these images searchable on the FamilySearch website.  That means that you can find the picture and GPS of a headstone as the result of a name search on the church's website.   

SO... go to the website www.billiongraves.com to do a search to see if you have ancestors in the database.  The search is pretty easy to figure out.

Besides using this as a resource to find your ancestors, there are two things you can do to get involved with this project:

1.  Photograph headstones!  You can do this as a planned outing, or just as you are visiting the headstones of your family.  Visit their website for instructions on how to get set up on your GPS enabled phone.

2.  Help with the transcribing effort (much like the indexing project through the church).  The pictures that others have taken need to have the names and dates typed in online.  This can be done on any computer... you don't need a smart phone to transcribe.

I think my family is going to find a cemetery to help out with for FHE next week. 

Next week's topic:  More grave site locating resources!  Get ready for Memorial Day!!

Happy grave hunting and have a great week!!