Dropping in on Emily

I started writing this blog post on my smartphone last Monday when we were on a roadtrip in country NSW. I had intended tidying it up on my laptop before posting that evening but I forgot to pack my computer. As I found the post difficult to tart up on my phone I put it aside until we returned home.

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Mr GeniAus and I are currently motoring south along the motorway and I am attempting to draft a blog post on my phone.

On the way to our  destination we stopped into Liverpool General Cemetery and Crematorium to visit the grave of Emily Ball nee Royds. Mr GeniAus' Great-Grandmother. A few years ago when we first located her grave we discovered that it was unmarked. We discussed this and decided that we would like to place a memorial on the plot.

It took us a while but around 2016 we approached the cemetery authorities asking for permission. We submitted copies of relevant certificates that showed Robert's relationship to Emily. The cemetery replied that we needed the approval of the plot's owner  (who happened to be buried a couple of rows from Emily). We did find as living descendant of the plot owner who had no objection. We then contacted a monumental mason who was happy to undertake the work for us.

After quite a bit of deliberation we chose a simple plaque and appropriate wording. Around a year ago the monumental mason let us know that the plaque had been placed on Emily's plot.

Since moving house we haven't had an opportunity to visit the cemetery and inspect the plaque. Today as we were motoring south we took a small detour and dropped in on Emily. On seeing the plaque that mentioned birth and death dates, maiden name and place of birth I commented that it looked like a genealogist had input into the information shared on the plaque. Hopefully, in the future, it may help some other genies who are connected to Emily.

While at the Cemetery I also took a couple of dozen photos and uploaded them to BillionGraves. I was on a tight time schedule or I would have added more.

Family History Through the Alphabet – B is for …Billion Graves

B is for …Billion Graves or, for that matter, any other site that shares headstone photos and data about people's final resting places.

I am on a number of lists where people offer to take photos of headstones for others. These random acts of genealogical kindness (RAOGK) are commendable but the results of the efforts taken by the kind volunteer photographers usually only go to one family member. I just wish these volunteers were getting better value for their efforts.

If these volunteers were to contribute the images they take to a site like BillionGraves (my fave), FindaGrave, or The Australian Cemeteries Index then the photos they take and details they record would be available for posterity (hopefully) to anyone now or in the future. Some genealogists self-host sites where they share photos of cemeteries they visit, the sterling work of Carol of Carol's Headstone Photos comes to mind.

I like  BillionGraves  because it is an international site, one only needs to take pictures as other volunteers transcribe one's images, I can use my mobile phone for the task and best of all GPS co-ordinates are added to images so the graves and headstones are easy to locate. As one who has spent may hours in hot, dusty cemeteries trying to locate graves I appreciate this fab feature.

If you are feeling generous and offer to take some headstone photos for others please consider using a service like BillionGraves and making your images accessible to a wide audience.

Get fit and help others

How about taking a brisk walk around a local cemetery with your device in hand and contribute to the BillionGraves database?

This article has some great tips for taking better headstone pictures.
Million More in May: Picture-taking Tips « BillionGraves Blog

Better then Bricks

A popular way to memorialise ancestors and raise funds for charitable organisations is to place bricks in a memorial wall or path. Descendants pay/donate $50 or more for a brick that is then inscribed with their ancestor's details and installed in a memorial. Examples of this in Australia include Gympie's Memorial  Lane and Adelaide's Settlement Square.

Today while holidaying in Western Australia I found a variation on this theme along the beachside path at Rockingham.  Set into the path are granite plates about 40 cm square inscribed with details of pioneers of the area; these contained more information than what I have seen inscribed on brick walls and paths elsewhere. Use of such tiles for similar purposes may be common but it was the first instance I have seen of it.

My reference source Trove tells me "The Waterfront Pioneer Rotary Walk has ninety-nine historical granite tiles installed creating a public art walk along the boardwalk. Art Researchers Artists Arif and Audrey Satar consulted with the students from Rockingham Senior High School, community groups and the Rockingham Historical Society in designing the walk."

I photographed around 20 of these tiles that I will post on this blog from time to time. You can read the stories on two of them here.

While I was there I was wishing that I could upload images of these tiles to a site such as BillionGraves.


Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was a site that allowed one to photograph, save GPS details and inscribe details of these and other monuments around the world.

Billion Graves

On our recent trip we travelled back to Sydney via a few towns where some ancestors buried.

One of the cemeteries I had previously visited in Cobar many years ago but the images I had taken of my grandparents' headstones were poor quality. I wanted to rephotograph these and also look for other family resting spots. The two other cemeteries where I managed to find some family graves, in Broken Hill and Forbes, were new to me.

Locating the graves in each of these sites wasn't particularly easy. In Cobar and Forbes there was no resource available to pinpoint the graves' exact location; the map of Broken Hill Cemetery that was available by the Cemetery gate was quite confusing even for Mr Geniaus who is not spatially challenged like me.

Ben Hall the Bushranger - Forbes Cemetery

In order to make it easy for cousins who may be seeking these graves in the future I added each of them to Billiongraves. The GPS coordinates that Billiongraves attaches to these images will make finding them in the future much easier for those who make use of the Billiongraves site or app.

As we were on a tight time schedule I could not commit myself to photographing all of the graves in each of these cemeteries. I did, however, take and upload a few rows of headstones  around the graves I was visiting in Cobar and Broken Hill.

In less than half an hour I was able to photograph over 100 images in Cobar cemetery. These are now available on Billiongraves site; those who wish to visit these graves can use the GPS coordinates to locate them efficiently.

How about joining and downloading the  Billiongraves  app to your Android or other device so that you can contribute to the database when you find yourself (above ground) in a cemetery. While in a cemetery take some time to photograph a row or two of graves. This is a painless and enjoyable way of helping others connect with their ancestors.

Praying for a Shady Day

The Australian summer is here in full force, today we expect the mercury to reach about 37°C. As I learnt on Friday this weather is not suitable for tramping through cemeteries.

I was so excited after listening to a webinar (Virtual Chapter Presentations) hosted by the Utah Genealogical Association on BillionGraves and Familysearch that when the webinar concluded I popped into my little Bambino and headed for the nearest cemetery. Although we were advised in the webinar that shady weather provided the best environment for taking photos of headstones I just could not contain my enthusiasm.

Thanks to the Utah Genealogical Association who have opened their webinars (Virtual Chapter Presentations) to the public. Firstly moderator, Suzanne Curley welcomed each of us as we joined the session. I then enjoyed Tim Cross's presentation; he had a relaxed style using appropriate but not too many screenshots augmented by live demonstrations. Tim provided relevant answers to the questions posed by the 46 or so online participants.  The Society hosts one of these meetings on the third Thursday of each month except December. Details can be found on the society website. A perusal of the topics indicates that they are not UScentric but are relevant to an international audience. The timing of the webinar at 1 PM Sydney time is perfect for me and many other Australians.

I recognised a couple of other Rootstech Official Bloggers, Sue Maxwell and Renee Zamora, in the group, I also noticed Banai Feldstein and Roger Moffat asking questions of Tim, there were also participants from Canada and the Philippines.

I chose the Dural Uniting Church Cemetery for the first sortie as my husband has a direct ancestor and her daughter buried there. This cemetery has already been photographed with images available on Australian Cemeteries Index but I will photograph the headstones for BillionGraves as I believe having  GPS coordinates will benefit others who wish to visit and find graves and the affiliation with FamilySearch will, in the future, have exciting benefits for many genealogists.

It was an easy task to upload my photos to the BillionGraves site on my return home. I was a bit hard on myself and did not upload all the photos taken because, in the harsh sunlight, I had difficulty seeing on the screen of the tablet what I was photographing. Having a at other photos on the site I realise that I should not have deleted mine. Ashady day would provide better conditions for this task and more comfortable conditions for the photographer. A number of other tips for photography were given in webinar and are also available on the BillionGraves site.

We were told in the webinar that we could add transcriptions to our own photographs  but the time I worked out how to do this someone else had transcribed them. What was disappointing about this was that they had not all  been fully transcribed, the names and dates had been added but the additional information fields had been ignored. I wonder if this is because those transcribers are in the race to get their names on the leaderboard for the most transcriptions done. It was an easy task to open and edit the records to add the extra information. I have also transcribed a number of other images on the site, this is a simple task that can be done whenever one has a few spare minutes.

Another reason I had for going out and trying the Android BillionGraves app that was already installed on my tablet is that I want to discuss it in my presentation The Galaxy Girls at Rootstech 2012. I will now be able to discuss the app with some authority.

If it's cool in your neck of the woods and you have either an Android phone or tablet or an iPhone why not download the app and test it for yourself. You can help build the BillionGravaes database from the 310,000 images it is today to the projected 1 billion.