Testers Needed for a New Feature

In the past, we on the BillionGraves team have gotten a lot of requests to allow photo uploads from devices that aren’t smartphones. We’ve always answered by saying that we want the information on BillionGraves to be as precise as possible, especially on details like the location of a headstone. We’ve also been neck deep in making the smartphone–website transition smoother and making the smartphone apps the best they can be.

However, a couple of the developers have had some time to put together a way to upload photos that are saved to your computer from a non-smartphone device.

Once these photos are uploaded, they will display in the search results, but they will be secondary to photos that have precise GPS locations from the mobile app. If a headstone photo is first uploaded from another source, and then later someone uploads a photo of it using the app, those two photos can be merged under one record and you’ll be able to see in the search results that the headstone’s location is verified.

(Speaking of merging photos, we’ve almost finished our system to merge duplicate images and records. Once we have that in place and have caught up on the current collection of duplicates, each record will only appear in the search results once.)

Before we open the new uploader to everyone on BillionGraves, we want to test it with a smaller group of individuals to make sure everything is working properly. If you have a collection of headstone photos you’d like to contribute to BillionGraves and you’re willing to play the guinea pig for a bit, email support@billiongraves.com. We’ll open it up to a small group and once we’re sure it works, we’ll open it up to everyone.

Cemetery News Feed

Now you can see all the BillionGraves activity from your dashboard. We’ve added an activity monitor and news feed to the BillionGraves website. Once you log in, you’ll see your dashboard, and in the window just below your profile picture is a set of scrolling news items. This window will display new batches of images, recently added cemeteries, new blog posts, and other items of interest.

The activity monitor will make it easier to see when there’s progress in the BillionGraves effort. (When the photo collectors and transcribers are keeping pace with each other, it’s hard to tell that anything’s happening.) It can also help you see when cemeteries and photos are added to areas that pertain to your research.

New batches of photos and cemetery additions may take some time to reach the activity monitor. Cemeteries need to be approved before they show up in searches or in the monitor, and we don’t want to report a batch of photos before the whole collection has been uploaded (otherwise the news feed will be full of announcements of 1–2 photos when a single 498-photo announcement would have done just as well). Even though the new items won’t strictly be in real time, they’ll still be an easy way to keep your fingers on the BillionGraves pulse.

Server Switch Tonight

Tonight between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m. MDT (GMT-6), BillionGraves.com will take a short break from service and migrate to a new server. This server will be faster and larger than our current server, and it will be very easy to increase its size to accommodate the growing photo and record database indefinitely into the future. During the move, your contributions will be safe and all the information will be retained. The only difference is that we’ll be better able to preserve your future contributions and continue to make them available to your fellow researchers.

If you’re out collecting photos during that time frame and try to upload them, the upload will fail, but the photos will still be on your phone. Wait out the server switch (it shouldn’t take too long) and try the upload again later. Once the new server is ready, the upload will go through and we’ll add your photos to the database.

Thank you for your patience during the move. It’ll be only a short break, and then the site will be up and running once more. The new server will be a better home for for your contributions.

Top the Leaderboard: Track Your Stats

The Android app isn’t the only thing we’ve been building over the past few weeks: we’re also improving the way we track photos, records, and cemeteries. A lot of what we’ve done keeps the database running smoother and you’ll never have to see it. But one fun part about our tracking everything is we can now acknowledge those of you who have participated above and beyond expectations. Yesterday we launched the BillionGraves Leaderboard (you’ll need to be logged in to see it; there’s also a link to it from your dashboard).

Click on the photo to enlarge the board for June’s leading transcribers and photo collectors (as of 10:10 AM MDT). A special congratulations to Catirrel and trishkovach, who each are currently topping either the photo or the transcription list. And an extra thank you to crex and Hokie374, who both are into the Top 10 for both categories.

The Leaderboard results can be viewed according to the current month or all time, and they update constantly. It’s not much, but it’s our small way of recognizing everyone who is working so hard to contribute to the BillionGraves project.

In addition to the Leaderboard, we’ve made several subtler improvements to existing aspects of the site. 

Report Images

For transcribers, there’s now a much improved Report Image function. If you click the red button beneath a problem photo, you’re given several options as to the reason why you’re reporting the photo (this helps us know what to do with it):

• This photo is blurry or unreadable: For poorly taken photos that need to be redone.
• The headstone is unreadable: For headstones that are too hard to decipher.
• This isn’t a headstone!: Just in case something that isn’t a grave monument gets past our image checker.
• There’s no information to transcribe: For monuments or photos that don’t contain anything you can transcribe.
• Non-Latin characters (Arabic, Chinese, etc.): For monuments with non-Latin letters. In the future these will be supported, so we want to keep these stones separate for future transcribing.
• Other: Because we can’t think of everything.

Before you mark a photo or stone as unreadable, please make sure it actually is. There are many photos and stones that may be less than ideal, but are still legible with a bit of zooming, squinting, and informed thinking.

Shortcut Keys

In case you aren’t already aware, I want to let you know about our shortcut keys for transcriptions. CTRL+S will save your transcription and CTRL+I will add an individual. We plan to add even more of these so transcriptions can be as quick and easy as possible.

Add an Individual to a Saved Transcription

There have been a few instances in which a transcription was saved before all the individuals in the photo were recorded. Unfortunately there was no way to add an individual after saving. That has been remedied, so you can now add individuals regardless of where you are in the transcription process.

Basic Error Checking

We’ve introduced some basic error checking (someone’s birth or death date cannot be recorded as tomorrow, for example). We intend to make these more sophisticated as we go along so we can improve the quality and accuracy of BillionGraves transcriptions.

Thank you to everyone who has already downloaded the Android app this weekend and started using it. You’ve given the swift-fingered transcribers a lot more to do.

New Features Already Available

Yesterday two of the four features I mentioned last time went live: the new transcription form and zoom capabilities. The new form is still simple and easy to use, but is now more adaptable and can accommodate more types of information. The default form now has the following fields:

• Prefix
• Given Names
• Family Names
• Birth Month, Day, & Year
• Death Month, Day, & Year

By clicking “add additional info” in the lower right corner of the form you’ll also see these:

• Maiden Name
• Marriage Month, Day, & Year

You can also click the blue “Add Description” tab under the form and you’ll get these:

• Add Epitaph
• Add Additional Information

The “Add Additional Information” field is there for anything that isn’t easy to standardize. Some headstones list children, but many of them differ in how they go about it. Some mention parents, but sometimes only by initials. Some mention military service, but the format for units and such varies. With the free-text format of the additional information box, you can ensure all the information gets captured and recorded and nothing gets left out because it doesn’t fit a predefined form.

If you have any questions about how to transcribe a particular headstone, visit our transcription help page.

Future Features

Thank you for making the launch of BillionGraves.com so fun to watch and experience. We appreciate all the feedback you’ve been giving us and we’re hard at work adapting the site and app so they work better for you. Here’s a look at what we’re working on right now.

#1 - The Android App
As we’ve mentioned before, this is our top priority. It was top priority before the launch, but now that so many of you have requested it as well we’ve redoubled our efforts on that front. If all goes well, we’ll have an Android version of the app out by the end of June. If you’re a registered user over at the website, you’ll receive an email as soon as the app is available in the Android Market.

#2 - Additional Transcription Information
A lot of the headstones that have been collected hold a richer collection of information than the transcription setup currently supports. Right now the essential names and dates get recorded; soon there will be options that will allow you to record extra snippets like marriage dates and children if that information is on the grave marker.

#3 - Better Map Views
Currently you can see the photos you’ve taken mapped out in a cemetery, or you can see an individual headstone mapped out. Soon we’ll have the map set up so it can show you where all the mapped out headstones in a cemetery are, whether you’ve collected the photos yourself or not. This will help you to know if a cemetery has already been done, if only a part of it has been done, or if it’s waiting for you to come chart it.

#4 - Zoom
Before much longer you’ll be able to zoom in on photos so you can better transcribe the information on them. This should make the searchable records more accurate and make it easier to transcribe older grave markers.

There are plenty of other things in the works, mostly things that you’ve requested either in blog posts or emails sent directly to us, but these are the things you’ll most likely see the soonest.

Launching BillionGraves.com

As we here at BillionGraves.com launch our website and release its integrated iPhone app, I wanted to give you an insider look at what we do and why we do it.

Our Story

As I delve into my family history, I celebrate every ancestor I find, and every record or scrap of information I can locate. But over and over, I run into roadblocks. Anyone who really digs for their family roots knows what that feels like. All these records and snippets of history I’m trying to find are out there, somewhere. But all too often I don’t know where to find it, or I can’t find it because I can’t travel to wherever my ancestors were born, lived, or died. But I realized something: every record is near somebody, even if that somebody isn’t me. As far as headstones and graves go, someone out there lives next to the cemetery I need. And who knows, maybe the cemetery they need to search through is the one in my home town.

So my friends and I started work on BillionGraves.com. In building the site and its iPhone app, we’ve created a framework that allows people all over the world to map out photos of all the headstones in their local cemeteries and upload them to the BillionGraves.com database. Once the photos are there, fellow family historians can transcribe the information from the headstones and make it easy to search, which puts unique headstone records only mouse-clicks away from anyone looking for their ancestors. By using the iPhone’s location services, we can ensure that even when descendants are half a world away, they can not only see their ancestors’ information, but they can also see the actual headstones and exactly where those headstones are. Previously undocumented records end up collected in an easy-to-access, free-to-use location, and family historians anywhere can use this framework to build on their existing research.

The trouble is that even though we’ve built this framework, it won’t amount to much unless we have help from all over the world. And by all over the world, I mean if we don’t have help from you. We have the audacious goal to accurately record at least a billion graves for our database, but that can’t happen unless you help us.

How You Can Help

If you have an iPhone, please download the BillionGraves.com app from the iTunes store (available for free from now until June 1 as a Memorial Day special, $1.99 after that). Take your iPhone with you to your local cemetery and start taking photos of the headstones there. You have unique access to those headstones. Share that access with the world.

Once the headstone images are uploaded to BillionGraves.com, everyone—even and especially those who can’t collect photos with an iPhone—can transcribe the previously exclusive records and make them searchable. By transcribing, you’ll make important records available to descendants everywhere.

Help everyone find their ancestors by participating in our grand goal to map out the world’s cemeteries. Together, we can record a billion graves and more so nobody is ever lost or forgotten.