March ‘Win the Pin’ Contest

March is here already and the weather is warming up- which is good news for BillionGravers! BillionGraves is growing faster than ever. A special thanks for our top contributors in February!

Here is the next edition of the “Win the Pin” Contest!!

Each month you’ll get the chance to compete for the unique pin of the month. All you have to do to win the pin is to upload or transcribe enough images for BillionGraves to get a spot on the leaderboard by the end of the month. Those 50 Uploaders and 50 Transcribers will be the lucky winners of that month’s pin.

We are pleased to unveil March’s ‘Win the Pin’ contest design.

Each pin is hand-crafted and made to last. In fact, the NCAA football bowl game coins are made by the same company! And let’s be honest… how can you go wrong with the BG logo?!

Here are the rules. You get on the leaderboard, whether for uploading photos or transcriptions, and you win. It’s that simple. Keep an eye on the leaderboard this month to make sure you get to win this pin.

Good luck!

The Rules

-Make sure you have permission and are welcome to take pictures in your local cemetery before doing so. Remember, private cemeteries require permission of the owner before taking any pictures.
-If you or another user marks a headstone picture as “bad” we deduct it from the uploader’s total images.
-Winners will be announced at the end of the month on the BillionGraves blog. Prizes must be claimed by the 15th of the following month via email to qualify for shipment of prizes.
-Promotion is open to all to participate for free. Registration is required.
-More than one individual may contribute to a single account, however, the limit is one prize redemption per BillionGraves account.
-Items will ship in 6-8 weeks after contest closes for winners in the U.S. Please allow 8-12 for winners outside the U.S.
-Recipients will be required to provide a mailing address for physical items.
-All images must be uploaded/transcribed no later than midnight (GMT) on the last day of the month.

February ‘Win the Pin’ Winners!

Thank you again to our top transcribers and photographers who participated this month in the February ‘Win the Pin’ contest. The cold weather’s still there. But that still doesn’t stop our top contributors!

Here are the winners of the February ‘Win the Pin’ contest winners!  

If you are on this list, please make sure your email on your BillionGraves account is your correct current email address. We will be emailing you through the email on your account. You will need to provide us a shipping address where you would like your February Pin sent. Thanks again to all who contributed this month!

Thank you for your many contributions!

MyHeritage and BillionGraves team up and launch international App

Groundbreaking multilingual mobile app will power international crowd-sourcing initiative

We are pleased to announce a new collaboration with MyHeritage to digitally preserve the world’s cemeteries.

In this collaboration, MyHeritage calls upon its tens of millions of users along with millions of other family history enthusiasts around the world to work with BillionGraves to digitally preserve cemeteries around the world and capture their GPS locations. 

BillionGraves and MyHeritage will work together to make the BillionGraves website and application available in 25 languages.  Along with other features, the BillionGraves app and website will also support Gregorian, Hebrew and Julian dates. The addition of these features makes the BillionGraves app the first of its kind to be made available to the entire world. 

The BillionGraves content is available for free on MyHeritage SuperSearch. In addition, MyHeritage is matching it for free to its 27 million family trees on MyHeritage and Geni.

Gilad Japhet, Founder and CEO of MyHeritage said

“We’re thrilled to embark on this global initiative with BillionGraves. Gravestones are among the most valuable information sources for family history research, and although there are many thousands of cemeteries worldwide, most of them have never been documented, and their information is not available online.  Time is chipping away at the gravestones and many are becoming unreadable over the years so it’s up to our generation to preserve them.”

Hudson Gunn, President of BillionGraves said

“We’re delighted to work with MyHeritage on digitizing the world’s cemeteries. At BillionGraves we are working to provide a comprehensive family history database for records and images from the world’s cemeteries—but it’s not something we can do alone. With MyHeritage’s support in mobilizing its massive user community and working with us to launch in 25 languages, we’ll be able to provide incredible value for millions of families and preserve this valuable data for generations to come.”

For more details about this partnership,  read the official press release on Business Wire or visit the MyHeritage Blog.

Disclaimer: BillionGraves has not been acquired by MyHeritage and is still owned and operated by Otter Creek Holdings. BillionGraves has and will continue to remain a FREE resource to all.

MyHeritage and BillionGraves Team Up to Digitally Preserve the World’s Cemeteries

MyHeritage and BillionGraves team up to digitally preserve the world’s cemeteries

Groundbreaking multilingual mobile app will power international crowdsourcing initiative

TEL AVIV, Israel & LEHI & KAYSVILLE, Utah – Wednesday 19 February, 2014
- MyHeritage, the popular online family history network, has partnered with BillionGraves to launch a global crowdsourcing initiative to preserve the world’s cemeteries.

BillionGraves is a free iOS and Android application that lets users easily photograph and document gravestones, providing an important source of information for people intrigued about their ancestors and family history. Using patent-pending technology, BillionGraves is the only mobile application of its kind. With the help of MyHeritage, the app will be available in 25 languages, and will support Gregorian, Hebrew and Julian dates. It records the GPS locations of gravestones to make them easy to find and volunteers can easily see which areas of any cemetery remain undocumented, to maximize efficiency and avoid duplication. The gravestone photographs are then transcribed by volunteers on the BillionGraves website, resulting in searchable digital data.

With a community of tens of millions of family history enthusiasts all around the world, MyHeritage brings a vast global volunteer base for collecting and transcribing gravestone photos using the BillionGraves application.

All records collected are made available for free on the BillionGraves and MyHeritage websites. The partnership with BillionGraves brings major benefits for families using MyHeritage to explore their past, as all users will receive free Record Matches – alerts about gravestone records that have been automatically matched to their ancestors, making it easy to make new discoveries. In addition to the photographs and GPS coordinates of the gravestones, an index of corresponding information, such as dates of birth and death, close family relatives and epitaphs, is made available to search for free on MyHeritage’s search engine for historical records, SuperSearch.

“We’re thrilled to embark on this global initiative with BillionGraves”, said Gilad Japhet, Founder and CEO of MyHeritage. “Gravestones are among the most valuable information sources for family history research, and although there are many thousands of cemeteries worldwide, most of them have never been documented, and their information is not available online.  Time is chipping away at the gravestones and many are becoming unreadable over the years, so it’s up to our generation to preserve them.”

“We’re delighted to work with MyHeritage on digitizing the world’s cemeteries”, said Hudson Gunn, President of BillionGraves. “At BillionGraves we are working to provide a comprehensive family history database for records and images from the world’s cemeteries—but it’s not something we can do alone. With MyHeritage’s support in mobilizing its massive user community and working with us to launch in 25 languages, we’ll be able to provide incredible value for millions of families and preserve this valuable data for generations to come.”

Over the coming weeks, MyHeritage users will receive documentation about the project and will be able to download the application via a special website designed for this project.

About MyHeritage

MyHeritage is a family history network helping millions of families around the world discover and share their legacy online. As technology thought leaders and innovators, MyHeritage is transforming family history into an activity that’s more accessible, exciting, and easier than ever before. MyHeritage empowers its global community of users with social crowdsourcing tools, a massive library of historical content, and powerful search and matching technologies. The service is available in 40 languages. For more information, visit www.myheritage.com.

 Press Contact

Aaron Godfrey, PR Manager for MyHeritage

Phone: US +1-347-329-5461 | UK +44-208-816-7571

Email: aaron@myheritage.com

About BillionGraves

With more than 7 million headstone records created by 70,000 volunteers in just two years, BillionGraves is the trusted resource for accurate GPS gravestone and burial record data on the web. BillionGraves’ mobile GPS tracking technology in its mobile application perpetuates this progress, bringing a wealth of genealogical information right to your fingertips. For more information, visit www.billiongraves.com

Disclaimer: BillionGraves has not been acquired by MyHeritage and is still owned and operated by Otter Creek Holdings. BillionGraves has been and will continue to be a FREE resource for all.

BillionGraves Announces NEW “Supporting Record” Features

After months of work in response to hundreds of user requests, BillionGraves has added several new features designed to validate and enhance the headstone records found on BillionGraves.

Introducing BillionGraves “Supporting Records”

The Supporting Record feature now allows users to upload evidence-based documents that support the BillionGraves records that have been collected through our mobile Apps. This means that users are now able to upload headstones, birth/death, burial, marriage, cremation, and many other types of records WITHOUT NEEDING A SMART PHONE!

[NOTE] BillionGraves will continue to emphasize the use of our mobile application to upload VERIFIED HEADSTONE RECORDS with their accompanying GPS locations and will remain a FREE resource to all.

Over the last 2 years, thousands of volunteers have uploaded millions of headstone photos with accompanying GPS locations from every corner of the globe. These records are viewed everyday by researchers around the world because these are VALIDATED and ACCURATE records. No fabrications. No interpretations. No assumptions. Here is an example of the information found currently on BillionGraves.

BillionGraves Headstone Record Example

• Headstone Photo
• Exact GPS Coordinates
• Transcribed Headstone Data
  • Full Name, Date of Birth/Death, Epitaph, etc.

Thousands of records are being uploaded every day and are breaking down genealogy brick walls and making connections that once seemed impossible. While working closely with our users and genealogists we found that there were many headstones and burials that just couldn’t be accounted for with our current systems; including unmarked graves, cremation scatterings, destroyed stones, and so on.

Our Supporting Record features eliminate this problem while maintaining the validity and accuracy of the BillionGraves database.

Our new Supporting Records feature allows users anywhere in the world to add evidence-based documents that validate and create additional insight into headstone records found on BillionGraves. The addition of these Supporting Records will serve as an invaluable tool to genealogists in their research.

Here are some examples of supporting records:

Supporting Record Types

• Birth/Death Certificates
• Marriage Certificates
• Burial Records
• Cremation Records
• Unmarked Graves
• Military Records
• Headstone records WITHOUT GPS coordinates
• Any other type of record that supports and validates any BillionGraves Headstone Records

Let’s face it, we’ve all been plagued with headaches caused by incorrect/assumed information in our family trees. BillionGraves’ Supporting Records IS the solution to your problems!

By adding and linking supporting documents to headstones on BillionGraves, we are able to connect the dots between each headstone and each member in your family tree by using EVIDENCE and not assumptions. Creating an accurate family history to pass on through the ages.

How to get started?

Supporting records are already appearing in the search results. Search now, to see our Supporting Records in action!

To add Supporting Records of your own:

1. Log in to your BillionGraves account. (Don’t have an account? Register for FREE today!)
2. Select “Add Supporting Record” from the “Tools” drop-down menu to add one record at a time.
3. To upload multiple records at once, select “Add Batch of Supporting Records” from the “Tools” drop-down menu.

Follow the on page prompts and helpful tips to assist you in your uploading. Follow us on our BLOG and Facebook page for more detailed tutorials and updates as they become available.

Have headstone images, birth/death records, or documentation of unmarked graves? Use the new Supporting Records feature on BillionGraves today!