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Getting Started with BillionGraves

The Challenge

BillionGraves has a goal to record one billion headstones across the world. Recording headstones with their specific GPS location will allow people researching their family history to access headstone information from anywhere in the world. Using your GPS enabled smartphone, you can quickly and easily take a photo of each headstone in a cemetery, and your phone will record its location. Then you can upload your photos to our site and transcribe them in our ever-growing database.

Download the App and start taking pictures

First, download the BillionGraves iPhone app from the iTunes store or Android app from the Android Market and start collecting photos at your local cemetery. Make sure nothing is covering the headstone information (names, dates, etc.), so that when the image is transcribed, the information can be read and recorded accurately.

Transcribe Images

Next, transcribe the images. Collecting photos achieves a lot towards our goal, but the images are useless if we don’t attach names and dates to them so they can be easily searched. Learn how to transcribe here.

Search for Family

Our database of headstones around the world is accessible on your smartphone or on the web. Search for cemeteries or specific names to help you in your family history research. Read our FAQ for more information.

Help us make family history research more accessible to everyone. Take the BillionGraves iPhone/Android app with you when you go to the cemetery and contribute to the grave image database. Even if you don’t have a smartphone to collect images for BillionGraves, you can still help build the database by transcribing the images so anyone, anywhere, can find ancestors’ graves with just a few clicks of the mouse.

Have more questions? Contact Us.

Important Instructions for using BillionGraves:

iPHONE:

Taking Photos
  1. When you first open BillionGraves you’ll see five buttons: Take Pictures, Records, Cemeteries, Dashboard, and Photos. To start taking pictures, tap the Take Pictures button (the first button on the top).
  2. The camera will open. Hold your iPhone so the headstone and all its important information appears on the screen.
  3. Tap the camera icon on the bottom of the iPhone screen to take the picture (if you’re holding your iPhone horizontally, the camera icon may appear on the right or left edge of the screen).
  4. The screen will blink and a snapshot sound will play when the picture is taken. Once the picture has been taken, you can move on to the next headstone. (If in your app settings the option for Preview after Capture is set to On, you’ll need to review the photos you collect before moving on.)
  5. Sometimes you will need more than one photo to get all of a headstone’s information (an obelisk may have more than one side, for example). To link photos of the same headstone, take a photo of one part of the stone. Then tap the broken link icon in the top left corner (bottom left, if you’re holding your phone horizontally). The icon will change to a linked chain and will be bordered in blue. The next photo you take will be linked to the last photo you took. After you take a photo the linking will stop. If you need more than two photos to collect all the information, you’ll need to link each photo individually.
  6. To exit the camera screen, tap the X button in the upper right corner of the screen (if you’re holding your iPhone horizontally, the X icon will appear on the top left corner of the screen).
Viewing Photos
  1. To view the photos you’ve collected, tap the Photos button from your home screen (it’s in the bottom right corner).
  2. A list showing the cemeteries you’ve collected photos from will appear. Tap on a cemetery to view the photos you collected there.
  3. A thumbnail collage of the photos you’ve collected in that cemetery will appear. If they’ve already been uploaded to BillionGraves.com, they will have an Uploaded tag on them. If two photos are linked, a chain icon will connect them to one another.
  4. If you tap on an image, you’ll see a larger version of it and you’ll have some options for what to do with it. From this view you can swipe your finger right and left across the screen to view different photos.
  5. To stop viewing photos, tap the icon with the cemetery’s name in it that is in the top left corner of the screen.
Uploading Photos

Once you’ve collected images, it’s time to upload them. Tap Photos on the home screen, and you have a chance to review and upload your images. (If the Auto Upload setting is On, once you’ve reviewed an image it will upload automatically.) If your Prompt to Share setting is On, you’ll be prompted to log in to Facebook or Twitter and share your photo-collecting success with your friends.

Deleting Photos

After you’ve uploaded your photos you’ll want to delete them off your phone to save memory space so you can collect more. You can delete all the photos in 1BGraves at once, individually, or by cemetery.

  1. To delete all your photos at once, tap the Photos button on your Home screen. Then tap the Actions button (the box with an arrow coming out of it) in the top right corner of the screen. Select Remove All, then confirm your choice by tapping Yes.
  2. To delete photos individually or by cemetery, open up a cemetery’s photo collection. Tap the Actions button (the box-and-arrow icon) in the top right corner of the screen. Tap the photos you want to delete (if you want to delete all the photos in the cemetery, tap Select All in the lower right corner of the screen). Then tap Remove (the red button at the bottom of the screen). Confirm your choice by tapping Yes.

ANDROID

Taking Photos
  1. Along the bottom of your dashboard screen there are five buttons: Camera, Photos, Cemeteries, Dashboard, and Settings. To start taking pictures, tap the Camera button (the first button on the left).
  2. The camera will open. Hold your phone so the headstone and all its important information appears on the screen.
  3. Tap the camera shutter icon.
  4. Once the picture has been taken, you can move on to the next headstone. (If in your app settings the option for Preview after Capture is set to On, you’ll need to review the photos you collect before moving on.)
  5. To exit the camera screen, tap the X button in the upper right corner of the screen.
Viewing Photos
  1. To view the photos you’ve collected, tap the Photos button from your dashboard (or any screen other than the camera view). It’s the second button from the left.
  2. A list showing the cemeteries you’ve collected photos from will appear. Tap on a cemetery to view the photos you collected there.
  3. A thumbnail collage of the photos you’ve collected in that cemetery will appear. If they’ve already been uploaded to BillionGraves.com, they will have an Uploaded tag on them.
  4. If you tap on an image in any of these views (list, thumbnail, or map), you’ll see a larger version of that image and you’ll have some options for what to do with it. From this view you can swipe your finger right and left across the screen to view different photos. The arrow icon in the top right corner of the screen will rotate the image 90 degrees clockwise.
  5. To stop viewing photos, tap the icon with the cemetery’s name in it that is in the top left corner of the screen.
Uploading Photos

Once you’ve collected images and viewed them to make sure they’re rotated properly, it’s time to upload them. You can upload images individually, in batches, or all at once. If the Auto Upload setting is On (see “Change Your Settings” below), once you’ve reviewed an image it will upload automatically.

  1. To upload an individual photo or small batches of photos, follow the instructions for viewing an image until you are viewing one cemetery’s collection of photos. Then tap the Actions button (the box-and-arrow icon in the upper right corner of the screen). Tap the photo you want to upload to select it (the photo will gray out and have a checkmark on it when it’s selected). When you’ve selected all the photos you want to upload, tap Upload (in the lower left corner of the screen).
  2. If you would like to upload an entire cemetery worth of images, follow the instruction for viewing an image until you are viewing one cemetery’s collection of photos. Then tap the Actions button (the box-and-arrow icon in the upper right corner of the screen). Then tap Select All (in the lower right corner of the screen). Then tap Upload (in the lower left corner of the screen).
  3. If you would like to upload all your collected images from all the cemeteries you have visited, tap Photos so you can see a list of all your cemeteries. Then tap the Actions button (the box-and-arrow icon in the upper right corner of the screen). Confirm that you want to upload all your images by tapping Upload All.
Deleting Photos

After you’ve uploaded your photos you’ll want to delete them off your phone to save memory space so you can collect more. You can delete all the photos in 1BGraves at once, you can delete them individually, or you can delete them by cemetery.

  1. To delete all your photos at once, tap the Photos button (the second from the left) at the bottom of the screen from your dashboard. Then tap the Actions button (the box-and-arrow icon) in the top right corner of the screen. Select Remove All, then confirm your choice by tapping Yes.
  2. To delete photos individually or by cemetery, open up a cemetery’s photo collection. Tap the Actions button (the box-and-arrow icon) in the top right corner of the screen. Tap the photos you want to delete (if you want to delete all the photos in the cemetery, tap Select All in the lower right corner of the screen). Then tap Remove (the red button at the bottom of the screen). Confirm your choice by tapping Yes.

GENERAL INFORMATION

Linking Photos of the Same Headstone

Sometimes you need to take more than one photo of a headstone to collect all the information on it. Some examples of this are standing slab headstones that have information on the back, four-sided obelisks, and headstone groups in which one large stone has the family name inscribed on it and a series of smaller stones bear the given names of individuals.

  1. To link two images together, take the first photo.
  2. Tap the linking icon (the two chains in the upper left corner of the photo-taking screen).
  3. Take the second photo.

After you take the second photo, the linking will turn off. If you need to link more than two photos, just tap the linking icon again after the second photo and so on until you’ve photographed the entire headstone.

Photo GPS Tagging

When you’re collecting headstone images, the camera button is colored to show how accurate the GPS-location tagging on the images will be. The color indicates how good the GPS signal is (green is the best, red is not good at all).

Battery Use

The 1BGraves camera is constantly updating the GPS information so you can always capture the most accurate information possible about the graves you’re visiting. This is great in terms of the information, but it takes some planning in regards to your phone’s battery. The constant updating requires a lot of battery power, and combined with the fact that sometimes it’s hard to see your screen outdoors unless you turn the brightness up, using the 1BGraves camera can drain your battery much faster than usual. If you’re out traveling, be sure to bring a portable charger to make sure you can collect as many photos as possible and still be able to use your phone for other things. Plan ahead and it shouldn’t be a problem.

Photo-taking Tips

When you’re taking headstone photos, the most important thing is to capture the information clearly. Here are a few tips to make photos easier to transcribe and use:

  1. Avoid your shadow falling on any part of the headstone. (This may mean you need to take the photo upside down, depending on where the sun is. Don’t worry—you can flip the photo right side up on BillionGraves.com.)
  2. Make sure nothing is covering the headstone information (names, dates, etc.). Sometimes grass clippings, fallen leaves, or dirt can obscure the headstone. Brush it off before taking a picture.
  3. Include all of the important information in the photo. You may not be able to read the words on the iPhone, but on the website, with a larger screen, it will work wonderfully.
  4. Avoid the sun if you can. You get the best quality photos at dawn and dusk, or when it’s overcast. You can’t always control the weather, or your schedule, but if you have a choice, try to avoid the brighter parts of the day.

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    Free Access to Records

    To celebrate the holidays, we at BillionGraves are providing anyone who registers for a BillionGraves account during December and January free access to records within the iPhone or Android app. This promotion will continue through the end of January, so if you don’t have an account, or know someone who doesn’t, register today for free so you can access this great feature.

    With access to records on the go, you are able to visit a cemetery, search for a name, and find both the headstone image and the GPS location for that headstone from your smartphone. If you have multiple relatives in one cemetery, you can find all of their headstones through a digital search rather than a manual one.

     














    If you have already registered during December, the next time you open your app, you will automatically have access to the searchable records within the app. Remember, records are always available for free online as well.


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    August Uploads and Solar Storms

    Thanks to so many of you, yesterday was the second largest uploading day BillionGraves has ever seen (the biggest uploading day coincided with our first cemetery event). We saw photos from all over pour into the database, and we appreciate every one of them.

    One person who significantly contributed to the uploading spike was user DSWILLET (he or she doesn’t capitalize the username; I do that because whoever this is deserves more than all lowercase letters). This morning DSWILLET tops the Leaderboard with 1,014 images uploaded since August 1. A small portion of those photos—about 250—were uploaded using the new uploading feature we’re testing, so they don’t have GPS tags on them. But DSWILLET is only 239 images away from the 1,000-photo threshold, and it’s only August 5.
    There are other users who are well on their way to the 1,000-image mark, and we haven’t even hit a weekend yet. Thank you all for mapping out your local cemeteries.
    In not-as-fun news, there is a possibility that GPS systems will be a bit glitchy this weekend. There have been three large solar flares recently, and the resulting coronal mass ejection (CME) could toy with radio traffic, power grids, and satellites. That isn’t to say everything related to GPS will break down for a few days, but if your GPS isn’t working the way it should, blame the sun, wait it out a day or two, and try again. If you’re close enough to the poles to see the auroras, enjoy the light show. I wish it could come as far south as Utah.

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