Million More in May: Earn MORE Free Stuff!
The number of records flowing into the database this month has been monumental! We are so appreciative of the efforts our volunteers are putting in. Participation this month has grown dramatically—in registrations, image uploads, and transcriptions. Your efforts have provided a giant boost to the BillionGraves database. Thank you!
Because there has been so much participation, we’ve decided that rewarding just the top 25 on the Leaderboard is not enough. Now, if you’re among the TOP 50 picture-takers or transcribers at the end of the month, you’ll earn some great prizes!
If you find yourself on the May Leaderboard as of May 31 at 11:59 PM GMT (7:59 PM EDT) as EITHER a transcriber or photographer, you will receive the following appreciation gifts:
Top 10 picture-takers and transcribers
BG+ account free for one year
BillionGraves t-shirt
$10 Subway gift card
Spots 11-20
BG+ account free for one year
BillionGraves t-shirt
Spots 21-30
Choose a BG+ account free for one year OR a BillionGraves t-shirt
Spots 31-40
Choose 10 Record Watches OR a BillionGraves t-shirt
And finally, spots 41-50
Thanks again for your contributions, and we hope you’re excited about the new prizes! Although, you may have to fight harder to retain your spot on the Leaderboard this month!
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
Promotion is open to all to participate for free. Registration is required.
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.
If a winner is on the Leaderboard for both categories (i.e. a leader in picture-taking and transcribing), the winner will be awarded the prize corresponding to the highest ranking on either board. For example, if a user is ranked #35 on the picture-taking Leaderboard and #19 on the transcription Leaderboard, he or she will be awarded the prize for spots 11-20, or a BG+ account for one year and a BillionGraves t-shirt.
Teamwork in Action
This weekend, a few of us here at BillionGraves were able to participate in an Eagle Scout Project hosted at a local cemetery.
The project was a huge success. Each volunteer had a great time providing service to their community. With everyone involved, the whole cemetery was recorded in less than an hour. Kind of inspires you to get a team going in your area, doesn’t it. (It should!)
This beautifully manicured cemetery was easy to navigate, and the volunteers worked diligently to collect headstone images.
The group was sure dedicated to their smartphones. It’s fun to come across unique headstones like these while taking pictures.
This young man put together a team of volunteers and organized an event all on his own, and the team knocked out an entire cemetery in a day. Like I said, you should feel inspired!
Recruit your friends and family and get your community involved in recording family history for others around the world. Teams can help each member feel motivated, share the burden of recording an entire cemetery, and make an afternoon at the cemetery more fun. Organize an event to record a cemetery together. You can refer your friends to our site to help them get registered and oriented.
We have an Eagle Scout reference packet as well as other reference guides on our site. Feel free to contact us with any questions you may have with regards to Eagle Scout Projects or organizing events—we would love to help you out.
Another Successful Saturday
Thanks to everyone who contributed on Saturday (and every other day this weekend, for that matter)!
Growing Grave Records
This Week’s Additions
United Kingdom
- England
- Wales
United States
- Arkansas
- California
- Florida
- Georgia
- Hawaii
- Idaho
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Iowa
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Maine
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Nebraska
- New York
- North Carolina
- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- South Carolina
- South Dakota
- Texas
- Utah
- Skåne
- Västra Götaland
- smflatness (1697 images)
- Gayle (1154 transcriptions)
- sadie63 (1020 transcriptions)
- Jeremyeguzman (1005 transcriptions)
- Simini (1080 transcriptions)
- waynedaz (1076 transcriptions)
Transcribing for Posterity
The most important part about transcribing is remembering that you’re trying to make sure as much information as possible gets into the searchable fields. Our search engine can’t search images; it can only search words. The more information you get into typed-up words, the more information the search engine can sort through to help people find their families.
With that in mind, most of these points will be apparent.
- Transcribe every part of the name and as much of a date as you can. This is going to be one of the most important things you can do because names and dates are the first way researchers will try to locate someone.
- Transcribe the ages of the deceased individual (if it is written on the stone). Some headstones or grave markers provide only one date: either the birth date or the death date. However, many of these stones will say how old the individual was in years, and possibly even months and days as well. This information is as important as a date. It will help researchers narrow their search in other records besides the headstone.
- Transcribe the epitaph if you can at all read it (and if there is one on the stone).* It is less likely that a descendant will be using the epitaph to search for someone. However, because epitaphs are typically complete phrases, they are sometimes easier to remember than names and dates. Someone searching for a stone they once visited might be able to remember the epitaph and not the name.
- Transcribe any other information you can get off the stone. Any of the stone’s information could be helpful in finding an individual’s grave and in recording it for posterity. If you can read it, please put it in your transcription, even if you aren’t sure what it means.
- Transcribe headstones in their native language. If you would like to provide a translation into your own language, you may do so in the Description field. However, the transcription information should include the headstone information as it appears on the stone. That is the primary goal of the transcription. Anything else is gravy. If you cannot transcribe the stone in its native tongue, skip it.