Tag Archives: contests

Million More in May Progress

As of today, here are the numbers for the results so far of Million More in May:

• 158,725 images uploaded by 409 people
  
• 152,946 records transcribed by 709 people
  
• 296 cemeteries added with
  
• Over 80,000 images queue, ready to be transcribed.
  

We are well on our way to a million! However—as you can see—we still have quite a way to go. And that means we need YOUR help! We know a million is quite the lofty goal, but it would be a huge milestone for BillionGraves. One that YOU could say you were a part of!

So get out to your local cemetery as much as you can these last two weeks. Remember, Memorial day coming up (on May 27th) for those of you in the U.S., which is a great time to take some photos while you’re already out in the cemetery! 

Let’s see if together we can accomplish something big. Like a MILLION kind of big.

Million More in May!

It’s back! The second annual “Million More in May” competition is here! Start getting excited for some friendly competition and taking pictures in the warmer weather! Here’s how it works:

The Challenge:

The goal is to add a million more images to BillionGraves during the month of May. If only 500 of our users upload 2,000 images this month we can easily reach this! That’s only 65 images per day (only 500 images per week)!

With only 500 of our thousands of contributors taking 1-2 trips to their local cemetery each week, we could reach this awesome goal!

The Reward:

As always, the greatest reward for your efforts comes from knowing that you are preserving invaluable genealogical records as well as making them readily available for family members to locate.

However, we are also giving away BillionGraves T-shirts to the Top 30 uploaders this month. Keep an eye on the leaderboard* to see if you are on track to win one of our coveted T-shirts at the end of the month!

But there’s more! For those that always go the extra mile and end up in the Top 3 uploaders, we are throwing in a $20 Subway gift card as well!

*Note: The leaderboard is updated daily and is not measured in real-time.

Some tips for you:

• Make sure that you have the latest BillionGraves app. We are working constantly to remove any obstacles that we find! Check the iTunes App Store or Google Play for any updates for your device.
• Make it a habit. Go to the cemetery regularly—incorporate a local cemetery into your daily walk or bike ride, and snap some pictures along the way.
• A word of advice: don’t wait for Memorial Day. The decorations at the cemetery for that holiday actually make it MORE difficult to collect images—people have to transcribe the content, and flower arrangements and other decorations can easily obscure that important content.

Set your personal goal:

We need YOU! What can YOU contribute to Million More in May? We challenge you to set a goal for the month for how many you will contribute per day/week.

Comment below and let us know what you plan on doing!

Who knows? You might just be the next superhero for someone looking for these records.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

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.
Winners will be announced at the end of the month on the BillionGraves blog.
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.
Awards will ship within 30 days at the end of the promotion.
Recipients may be required to provide a mailing address for physical items. T-Shirt winners will be required to provide their requested size.
All images must be uploaded no later than midnight GMT on May 31

Million More in May

April showers bring May flowers, setting a perfect stage for our Million More in May promotion! During the month of May, we want all of our users to go out and take thousands of photos in their local cemeteries. Together with friends and family, we can all try to reach one million new records in one month!

The Challenge

This has been an amazing first year for BillionGraves. The number of records is growing exponentially—let’s work together to keep growing our database. During the month of May, with volunteers around the world contributing, we can add one million new records to BillionGraves.

We can definitely reach this goal: let’s look at the numbers. If two thousand users take 500 pictures each, we’ll be at 1,000,000 new images this month. But won’t it take a long time for one person to take 500 pictures? Nope! A beginning picture taker will be able to document 500 images in 2 hours or less. Two hours! Imagine how many records would be recorded in just two hours each weekend in May. And once we all work together to transcribe these images, we’ll have our 1 Million records in May added to our database, searchable all over the world.

The Reward

If you are one of the most stellar picture-takers or transcribers during this promotion, you’ll be publicly recognized on our Leaderboard on the BillionGraves website. You’ll be famous at BillionGraves.com, and you’ll motivate others to continue adding new images and transcribing records. At the end of the month, the top 25 photographers and the top 25 transcribers will be rewarded with their choice of a free BillionGraves t-shirt or one year of our BillionGraves Plus Account! [Updated!]

Extra Motivation

We want to remind you about the value of the BillionGraves database. The information we have gathered and are currently gathering is not available anywhere else. Volunteers are documenting entire cemeteries, providing exact locations for cemeteries and even specific headstones within that cemetery. Then, when you search for your ancestor, you have the ability to see all the headstones in the vicinity—many connections can be discovered by locating relatives buried nearby the one you searched for. We know this information is priceless, and that’s why BillionGraves exists. So, when we all contribute new records, we all benefit from the information collected.

We are holding our Million More in May promotion for several reasons:

1. Because the goal of the entire BillionGraves project is to help people throughout the world connect with their ancestors, no matter where they are buried.
2. We want more people to learn about and participate in BillionGraves.
3. We want to commemorate Memorial Day in the US (May 28) by making more pictures and records accessible to people all over the world.

But don’t wait till Memorial Day to start taking your pictures! Get started early in May so we can be sure we’ll reach our goal by the end of the month. In addition, headstones will be adorned with beautiful arrangements and decorations for Memorial Day—not ideal picture-taking circumstances.

We’ll be communicating with you registered users regularly via email during the month of May to give you tips, suggestions, and motivation to reach our goal. And in future blog posts, we’ll tell you how to get friends involved, how to create a Facebook event to meet at a cemetery, etc. Keep visiting the blog and checking your email to see how you can help us reach a Million More in May!

Get Started

Get started by registering for free today if you haven’t already, downloading the app for your iOS or Android device, and then going out and taking pictures!

RootsTech 2012

RootsTech 2012 is this weekend! BillionGraves will be there—you are invited to attend our session at 1:45 on Saturday, February 4. You can also visit our booth throughout the conference.

We’re holding a contest in honor of RootsTech. The contest encourages you to recruit your family and friends, and then you’ll earn points for THEIR hard work! For every family member or friend that joins your team, you receive one point. And for every photo that your teammates upload, you get one point. So the more people you refer to BillionGraves, the faster your point total will grow. The contest ends on February 29, 2012, at 5 PM PST. If your team earns 10,000 points, you, as team leader, will win a $10 Subway gift card. Then we will hold a drawing to select our Grand Prize winner. The more points you earn, the more entries you get in the drawing. We will make a grand announcement about our Grand Prize during RootsTech this weekend!

Visit our RootsTech Contest page to learn more about the contest. From this page, it is easy to tell your friends by sending an email or posting to Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. Start growing your BillionGraves Team and help us build to a billion.

Information about our session:

Rob Moncur and Curtis Tirrell will present on using smartphones and GPS to crowdsource cemetery data collection. The session will be held in room 255B at the Salt Palace Convention Center on February 4. Again, the session starts at 1:45. We can’t wait to see you at RootsTech!

September T-shirt Winners

Today’s the last day to upload photos for a September t-shirt. Here are this month’s winners: