You're Invited! Transcribe 1 headstone today to help with Evan's Eagle project
July 03, 2015
Hi my name is Evan Rasmussen. Some of you might know my dad, Geoff. I am working on my Eagle project which is to help preserve a cemetery by photographing the gravestones and uploading the images to a website called billiongraves.com.
On Wednesday I and a group of people (20 of us) went to one of my local cemeteries and completed the photographing stage of the project. We took 687 pictures. The next thing I need to get done is to transcribe the images we took. This makes it so anyone who is looking for a relative in this cemetery can find them. If you want to help me out by transcribing ONE gravestone click here. Just zoom in, click on one of the green pins and transcribe away. (You'll have to first create a free account if you haven't already.) Thanks!
Here's what the cemetery looked like before we started:
Here's what it looks like now:
Here's what it looks like when you click on one of the yellow bubbles:
And here's what it looks like when you click on one of the green bubbles:
UPDATE:
A few hours later...
...and the entire cemetery has been indexed! Thanks everybody for helping. It went really quickly. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed your help! There's just a few pictures that I need to go back out and retake (some were blurry or cut off).
Here's a link to the follow-up article, "Cemetery Preserved, and Just In Time".
What you can do now...
1) Take pictures. Using the free BillionGraves app on your smart phone, you can click on the Cemeteries button to see which cemeteries are nearby where you are. Some will have lots of pictures taken, others won't have any yet. Just click on the Take Picture button and have fun!
2) At BillionGraves.com, click on the Transcribe tab at the top. Looks like there are more than 700,000 pictures from other cemeteries that still need to be indexed.
Thanks again everyone for your help!
Here's what it looks like now:
Now I'd better go finish my project's paperwork.
Note from Geoff...
Not bad for Evan's first-ever blog post, eh? And not a bad choice for a worthwhile Eagle project. It's been really difficult for me, as a genealogist and as a father, to not step in and just do this whole project for him. :) Evan has done all the planning, obtained permission from the cemetery district (they're really excited about this), and organized the group's efforts the other night. The root beer floats afterwards were pretty good too! Another of our local cemeteries was vandalized a couple of years back. Had it been digitized previously they would have had a permanent record without the damage. This experience has helped Evan learn how to be a leader which is one of the purposes of the Eagle project.
I wrote about BillionGraves a few years back. You can read about it here. It is a worldwide project with the intent to digitize, geocode, and thus preserve cemeteries. It's come a long ways since I first wrote about it. Its index is also now searchable at FamilySearch.
Thanks for your help with Evan's project. And give BillionGraves a try too, maybe you'll find one of your ancestors today.
5 done. Nice project
Posted by: Vickie Claybaugh | July 03, 2015 at 02:38 PM
Thanks Vickie!
Posted by: Evan Rasmussen | July 03, 2015 at 02:39 PM
This cemetery is also transcribed at Find a grave, but not all the Memories there have pictures of the headstones or footstones. A nice follow-on project might be to see where the Eagle Scout project has pictures to contribute to the Find a Grave Memorials.
Posted by: Bob Shalvoy | July 03, 2015 at 03:31 PM
Good to know Bob. We'll look into it.
Posted by: Geoff Rasmussen | July 03, 2015 at 03:32 PM
Nice project Evan.
I did the same thing, except I trancribed all of the headstones on-site. I should have done what you did! Good luck at your board of review!
-Jeremiah ;)
Posted by: Jeremiah Sanders | July 03, 2015 at 03:38 PM
Thanks Jeremiah! Wish you were coming to the reunion next week. Did you get your Eagle yet cousin?
Posted by: Evan Rasmussen | July 03, 2015 at 03:52 PM
Great work, Evan and everybody. And Geoff, you must be so proud. Smiling for you both
Posted by: Megan Hitchens | July 04, 2015 at 12:56 AM
Done!
Posted by: Teri Chaffin | July 06, 2015 at 09:31 AM
Evan...What a GREAT Project! My hope and faith is restored in the youth of the future with your BRILLANT efforts! Thank You!
I would LOVE to find a way to "inspire" a Eagle group here in Bridgeport, CT to work on an old none working cemetery. Can you suggest an Eagle Scout contact in my area?
~Carol~
Posted by: Carol L J Young | July 13, 2015 at 03:10 PM