BillionGraves Contest Leads to Free Canary Islands Vacation

In the Summer of 2015, BillionGraves offered a Summer of More Get Away contest.  Combine my passion for cemeteries with a contest, and immediately my competitive nature emerged!  Over a couple of months, with the help of my family and friends, I managed to photograph 68,972 images, allowing me to win a trip to anywhere in the world.  My family and I chose to travel to Teneriffe, Canary Islands, Spain.

A Room With A View

Our initial set off was not without incident.  A delayed and then canceled flight out of Dulles Airport resulted in our luggage being lost somewhere between Washington and France, or maybe it was France and Spain.  We never did find out what happened.  Our first 3 days in Teneriffe was spent in the same travel clothes.  But, hey!  We were in the Canary Islands, so who cares, right?!

 

My 16 year old daughter carried all her luggage on the plane.  Not a care in the world!

My 19 year old son looks like he could live here!

While waiting for our luggage to be found, we decided to connect with members of our faith.  Meeting with members of the local LDS church was like seeing family and made the trip even more special than it already was.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Teneriffe, Canary Islands

The Sister Missionaries were as happy to see us as we were to see them!

Our luggage finally arrived and after some respite, we were ready to see the island.  The black sand beaches are a result of the volcanic eruptions from El Tiede.  It was strange to see beaches this dark, but they were so beautiful!

I was fascinated by the rock piling on this particular beach.

Even though this was to be our vacation, we couldn't resist visiting cemeteries around the island and photographing them for BillionGraves.  The visitors of the cemeteries greeted us with an embrace and love.  Although we could not communicate in their language, we could feel their warmth and welcome.
 

From our Condo, the drive around the island took about 3 hours.  It was amazing that at one moment we would be on the beach and within an hour we would be in the mountains.  The view was always amazing!

 

 Our trip to Teneriffe was definitely an experience of a lifetime.  With my children nearly grown, it was expected that this may be our last full family vacation.  I am so grateful for the kindness of BillionGraves and their willingness to send the four of us on such a spectacular trip to another country. It is something we will never forget!  Thank you, BillionGraves!

If you would like to learn more about volunteering in this effort to preserve cemetery records, visit BillionGraves.com.

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The 21 Day Genealogy Challenge - Day 14: Giving Back to the Genealogy Community

“If you get, give.  If you learn, teach.” – Maya Angelou

Congratulations! You have made it to day 14 of the 21 Day Genealogy Challenge!  The past two weeks have been filled with researching and gathering information.  Some of that information may have been in the form of digitized and indexed documents that other researchers took the time to photograph or index.  Today is a great day to take a break from our own research and give back to the genealogy world.  Let’s look at a few options.

·       BillionGraves.  This free site is dedicated to preserving headstone and memorial information in cemeteries throughout the world.  The site has wonderful tutorials to guide you through the process of finding cemeteries in need of digitization, as well as the best way to take a photograph of a gravesite.  All you need is some time and a device such as a smart phone or iPad.

If you don’t have time to photograph an entire cemetery, but would still like to try your hand at taking pictures, there is a request board on the site (pictured below).  There may be a request for a cemetery near you.  Fulfilling requests on BillionGraves is a great way to learn about the site while helping other members add a source to their family history.

BillionGraves also has the option to volunteer from home.  Sometimes volunteers will upload images from a recent cemetery visit, but don’t have the time to transcribe those images.  If you sign on to the site from your home computer, you can select a set of pictures to transcribe.  Each image has a form you complete with the information provide on the gravestone.  Once you have completed the form, simply save the information and proceed to the next picture.  Once a headstone is transcribed, researchers will be able to access their ancestor’s information on the database.  Not only will they see the transcription, but BillionGraves will provide them with GPS coordinates for the headstone.  What a wonderful way to give back to the Genealogy community!

 

·       Consider joining a genealogy group on Facebook.  Whether it is a genealogy group dedicated to the state or country your ancestors are from, or a research assistance group like Random Acts of Genealogy Kindness, you will find that there will be many opportunities where your personal experience in family history research will be of help to someone else. You will also learn a great deal from others on the site.  It is a wonderful win-win opportunity.

·       Take time to volunteer to help someone you know start a family tree.  Walk your friend or relative through the steps you found useful in doing your own research.  Share the tips that made your experience enjoyable.  Remember to ask them questions about their family.  As they share their stories, show them how they can incorporate the information they have in their own family tree.

·       Teach local youth how to read and transcribe old documents that are in script.  Many schools no longer teach cursive writing, so you will be providing them with a skill that is becoming lost to the younger generation.  You can find documents to transcribe on the free site FamilySearch.org.  (See image of their website below.)  Once on the site, click on the Indexing link and you will be guided from there.  You have the option of choosing not only the level of difficulty, but the language and country the documents are from.  So, if you can read Italian, you can choose to transcribe available documents from Italy.  

Whether we realize it or not, we have all been the recipients of the previous work of others. The ideas mentioned in this blog are just a few opportunities we can choose from to give back to the genealogy community.  Perhaps reading this blog today triggered some of your own ideas.  However you donate your time, know that it is greatly appreciated by your fellow family history researchers.


Congratulations! You have completed day 14 of the 21 Day Genealogy Challenge!  If you have any questions or comments, feel free to post them in the Blog Comment section below.  Invite your friends to join this challenge by sharing this blog with them on Google+, Twitter and Facebook.  The share icons are just below this blog entry.

Also, join me on Twitter and Periscope!  You can find me under the name GraveFinder2. 

Thank you for joining this challenge and remember…..

History not shared is History forgotten!

The 21 Day Genealogy Challenge - Day 9: GoogleMaps and Genealogy

Oh, The Places You’ll Go! – Dr. Seuss

Welcome to day nine of the 21 Day Genealogy Challenge!  In day eight we looked at three sources that revealed where our ancestors lived.  Today I would like you to take the address of one of your ancestors and enter it in Google Maps.  If you have done this before, you will know how fun it is to see how our ancestral homes and towns look today.

How this works.

Type in your browser googlemaps.com.  Once you are in googlemaps, enter your ancestor’s address in the prompt.  For my ancestor there was no street number, just the street name.  Do not forget to enter the name of the town and state or you will end up with too many options to select from.

Your computer screen should now show you a street map image.  If you look to the bottom right of your screen, you may see some options that allow for a “street view” or images of the town itself.  By clicking on the Google Earth icon on the left side of your screen you will get a satellite image of the area you are searching.  You may zoom in on this image.  Now that you have the satellite view, look again to the right side of your screen.  You will see a “tilt image” option.  By tilting the image, you can see various angles of the town, including a horizon view.  

If your map imaging shows a filmstrip at the bottom of your screen, click on one of the images.  You will now see the houses and buildings as though you were standing on the street. Located just above the film strip, and on the right of the screen is an arrow button.  By clicking this button you can view your surroundings as though you were actually standing in the street and looking around.  

Take your time looking around your ancestor’s town.  Are you able to locate where your ancestor worked?  How about the local church?  If you happen to have old photographs of your ancestor’s home or workplace, compare your picture with the google image and see how the buildings have changed over time.

 

My great grandparents, Ollie and Judson Wilson at the depot station in Reynolds, Georgia.

Today the depot is the local public library.

 

If you are lucky enough to live or travel to where your family resided, take a camera and snap a picture of the house.  If you have an older photo of the home, upload both pictures in your family tree under the photos section for each family member who resided there.  It may not seem a big deal to you now, but you may have relatives that have never seen the home or live too far away to visit.  Seeing the photos may trigger memories and stories for them that they can share with you.

Congratulations! You have completed day eight of the 21 Day Genealogy Challenge!  If you have any questions or comments, feel free to post them in the Blog Comment section below.  Invite your friends to join this challenge by sharing this blog with them on Google+, Twitter and Facebook.  The share icons are just below this blog entry.

Thank you for joining this challenge and remember…..

History not shared is History forgotten!

21 Day Genealogy Challenge -- Day 7: Giving Back

Find Yourself in the Service of Others

-- Ghandi

Welcome to day seven of the 21 Day Genealogy Challenge.  The past week has been a busy and productive one!  Today is a great day to give back to the genealogy world.  There are quite a few options you can choose from to donate your time to helping others with their family history.  Here are a few of my personal favourites.

Index on Family Search.  FamilySearch is a free genealogical site where you can donate your time indexing records.  Indexing provides researchers like us the opportunity to find ancestors in historical documents. The type of records to index vary from military draft records to obituaries.  You choose the level of proficiency you desire.  If reading old script handwriting is difficult for you, you may choose typed documents such as a marriage or death certificate.  The site has tutorial videos to help you along the way.  Once you start, you won’t want to stop!  This is a worthwhile activity that can be fun and addicting!

Obituary for Judson Chesterfield Wilson.

BillionGraves.   Is it a gorgeous day?  Grab your smart phone or tablet and head to a local cemetery and snap pictures of graves and upload the photos to BillionGraves.  This site is a boon to people doing family history work.  Imagine finding online a photograph of your ancestor’s resting place.  Now imagine that the image also has the gps coordinates that leads you to not only the cemetery but to the exact burial plot!  That is what you will find with BillionGraves.

Whitehall Cemetery, Prince William County, Virginia. March 2016.

If you don’t have a smartphone, tablet or iPad with which to take pictures, there are other ways you can help.  With BillionGraves, you can transcribe pictures of headstones that volunteers have uploaded.  It is easy and fun to do, and again, can be somewhat addicting.  Imagine the people you are helping!  Visit the BillionGraves site to learn more.  

Giving Back

Giving back to the genealogy world is good karma.  Somewhere out there someone is digitizing a document or grave of your ancestor and when you come across it, you will be grateful that they did! 

Do you know of a genealogical site that allows for volunteer opportunities?  If so, we would love to hear from you!  Post your suggestions in the comment section at the bottom of this blog.

Congratulations! You have completed day seven of the 21 Day Genealogy Challenge!  If you have any questions or comments, feel free to post them in the Blog Comment section below.  Invite your friends to join this challenge by sharing this blog with them on Google+, Twitter and Facebook.  The share icons are just below this blog entry. 

Thank you for joining this challenge and remember…..

History not shared is History forgotten!