Million More in May: Happy Memorial Day!
Happy Memorial Day weekend to those in the US! At a time when we pause to remember those who fought for our freedom, we visit our cemeteries and show our love with tokens and kind words. In honor of Memorial Day, some members of the BillionGraves team put together a fun video about finding your ancestors’ headstones using BillionGraves.
FamilySearch News
You may have seen the good news: the BillionGraves Index is now available through FamilySearch! Now when you conduct a search on FamilySearch, BillionGraves data will be included in the results. You can also choose to search through just the BillionGraves Index, if you want to narrow your results. BillionGraves is a great genealogical resource, and we’re excited to have this new avenue to access our GPS-encoded headstone data. FamilySearch also provided a great article about getting started with BillionGraves on their blog last week.
A Few Clarifications
We’ve been checking the comments on some message boards and we want to clarify two things:
1. The data on BillionGraves is created by the public. We respect that and we intend to always make the database free for the public to use.
2. You don’t necessarily need a data plan to use BillionGraves. We’ve looked into the $150 Samsung Galaxy Player, which has GPS, WiFi, and a camera, and it works great. You won’t be able to see that you’re in a specific cemetery, but don’t worry, we’ll take care of that on our end, and your pictures will be added to the correct cemetery.
Don’t forget to check the Leaderboard this weekend to see what you need to do to get on it! (Or stay on it, if you’re already there.) Have a great weekend and keep adding photos for Million More in May!
New Features: Updated Dashboard and Request a Cemetery
We’ve updated the Dashboard to improve your experience on BillionGraves.com. Your profile is at the top of the page, and you can easily keep track of your progress, including the number of images you’ve submitted or transcribed. From the Dashboard, you can join or create a team and keep track of its progress. We’ve also made it easy for you to invite your friends to join BillionGraves: you can send an email or share on Facebook information for friends and family to learn more about BillionGraves.
Another new feature added to the Dashboard is the Request Board. From the Request Board, you can Request a Cemetery. This means if there is a cemetery or specific headstones you would like to see documented and included on BillionGraves, you can put out a request. Then, people living in the area of the cemetery can accept the request and visit that cemetery and take pictures for you.
How it works:
- Add a request: You can Add a Request to request images of specific headstones in a specific cemetery. This request will be posted on the Request Board and sent to users who live in the area of your requested cemetery. When another user accepts your request and uploads one or more images from your specified cemetery, you will receive an email telling you how many images were uploaded and giving you the option to begin transcribing those images.
- Receive cemetery requests in your area: On the Manage My Requests page, you can sign up to be notified of any cemetery requests in your area. You won’t receive cemetery requests unless you sign up. If any requests are posted within the area you specify, you will be sent an email with details about the request.
- Accept a request: To accept a request, go to the Request Board, find a cemetery request near you, and click on it. Below the map in the Request Information box, you will be able to read any additional information about the request. Click “accept request” if you wish to complete someone’s request.
If you want to review requests you’ve submitted and accepted, go to the Manage My Requests page.
Check out all these new features! We appreciate your efforts, and we are always working hard to improve your experience with BillionGraves.
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
- 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).
- The camera will open. Hold your iPhone so the headstone and all its important information appears on the screen.
- 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).
- 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.)
- 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.
- 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
- To view the photos you’ve collected, tap the Photos button from your home screen (it’s in the bottom right corner).
- A list showing the cemeteries you’ve collected photos from will appear. Tap on a cemetery to view the photos you collected there.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
- 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).
- The camera will open. Hold your phone so the headstone and all its important information appears on the screen.
- Tap the camera shutter icon.
- 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.)
- To exit the camera screen, tap the X button in the upper right corner of the screen.
Viewing Photos
- 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.
- A list showing the cemeteries you’ve collected photos from will appear. Tap on a cemetery to view the photos you collected there.
- 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 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.
- 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.
- 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).
- 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).
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- To link two images together, take the first photo.
- Tap the linking icon (the two chains in the upper left corner of the photo-taking screen).
- 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:
- 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.)
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
Image Review Process
We love and appreciate all the hard work and time you put in to gathering headstone images. Your work is helping family history enthusiasts everywhere. Because we want to make sure all of the images on BillionGraves are useable, we have always had a system of checking images before they are accessible for transcribing on our site. This ensures that no goofballs are uploading non-cemetery-related photos, accidental photos of the grass are weeded out, and duplicates are caught and removed. We want to make sure the transcription process is as clean as possible and that our database is reliable.
Here are some tips to help you take clean, usable images that can be transcribed completely:
Bad Photo: Sometimes the angle at which you take the photo makes it hard to read the bottom part of the stone.
How to avoid this problem: Bending down helps you to take the photo as straight on as you can. This way all parts of the photo can be transcribed accurately.
Bad Photo: Missing important information.
How to avoid this problem: If you don’t capture the whole headstone in one image, transcribers won’t have the information they need. Make sure nothing is covering important information (like fingers!). Sometimes, you may be tempted to take a few close-up shots of a larger stone. It’s fine to back up and capture the whole headstone in one shot; remember, you can zoom in and rotate images in the transcription phase. Also, during transcription, you can add another individual to the record (e.g. a husband and wife on the same headstone). If you really feel that you can’t capture the whole headstone in one shot without making it unreadable, be sure to link the images of the headstone together (as described in our user guide). This way, during transcription, all of the images of that stone will be accessible from the same screen. NOTE: Linking images is also used when there are multiple sides to a headstone.
Bad Photo: Shadows or debris blocking the words on the headstone.
How to avoid this problem: Although you can read the words through the shadows in person, in photos, shadows may have the same effect as black paint on the image, making it impossible to transcribe. If you can, take photos at a time of day that is neither too bright nor too shady. Bend down or find an angle where the shadows aren’t covering the words on the headstone.
For debris, we encourage you to clear off the headstones that are covered by leaves, dirt, etc. This is also a nice service for the cemetery, and then transcription of your images will be possible.
Training Materials for BillionGraves
We want everyone to participate in the BillionGraves project, so we’ve created some basic tutorials and training materials for you. The materials can be read online or printed for your convenience.
Take our quick reference guide with you to the cemetery to help you on your first trip or to help others quickly learn how to participate.
Look at our Eagle Scout Project reference guide to help you get started and to help you train other people on using BillionGraves during your project.
Hand out our information packets in seminars, conferences, team gatherings, etc.
Organize your team for the BillionGraves Team iPad Giveaway with the team recruitment flyer.
You can also view all of these training materials on our website.