Memorial day is an opportunity to remember not only those who have departed from us during our own lives but also our ancestors no matter how long ago they lived. I always thought it would be great if local societies adopted a cemetery in their area. Taking pictures, creating an index, verifying name, etc. Billiongraves.com allows you to accomplish a similar feat by preserving the sites and information of your own ancestors. FamilySearch presented a blog on Billiongraves.com and their work, found here:
Preserving the Memories of A Billion Graves
This is the time of year when people around the world are focusing their attention toward remembering and honoring their loved ones who have died. Many of us are making preparations to take the family to local cemeteries to visit the graves of beloved family members. This often includes cleaning up family burial plots and placing flowers on the graves of close family members. In addition to these activities, there is one more great activity that families can do that is in keeping with the spirit of this activity. As you visit the gravesites of your ancestors, why not bring your smart phone along and capture images of your loved one’s tombstones. Through the use of a smart phone App from BillionGraves.com, you can now preserve images of and information from these tombstones and make it possible for anyone around the world to see your ancestor’s gravesite through GPS navigation.
BillionGraves is a website that is dedicated to photographing and transcribing information from gravestones in cemeteries around the world. It has created a free downloadable App which enables anyone with an Apple iPhone or Google Android smartphone to use their phone to capture images of gravestones and upload those images to the BillionGraves website via the internet. These images are then transcribed by those who took the images or by others who want to help build this valuable database. This information is used to provide an extensive family history database for grave stone images from the world’s cemeteries. Soon, you will be able to view and search the index for free at FamilySearch.org.
Through the use of GPS coordinates and satellite technology, BillionGraves makes it possible to locate any gravestone that has been photographed and indexed. With an Apple iPhone or Android smartphone in hand, finding a person’s gravestone is a breeze.