Tech Tuesday: Find A Grave Acquired by Ancestry.com

In a press release dated September 30, 2013, Ancestry.com, the mega fee-subscription genealogy site, announced that it has acquired the free, contributor-based burial index site Find A Grave.

I have to admit that my first reaction was, "Oh no, there goes another one."  Over the years, the Ancestry corporate powerhouse has built its service and beefed up its fee-only content by "acquiring" smaller sites in the genealogy/family history industry.  I do recognize the advantages to having Ancestry's convenient collection of genealogical information at one's cyber fingertips (and yes, I am a subscriber), but it is still extremely sad and disappointing to see smaller, volunteer-based websites being assimilated.

So -- what does Ancestry's acquisition of Find A Grave really mean?  One can only speculate, but in yesterday's Press Release, Ancestry CEO Tim Sullivan stated,

     "Find A Grave is an amazing phenomenon supported by a passionate and engaged community of volunteers around the world ... We at Ancestry.com are so excited...honored really...to take on the responsibility of supporting this community. We will maintain Find A Grave as a free website, will retain its existing policies and mode of operation, and look forward to working with Jim Tipton and the entire Find A Grave team to accelerate the development of tools designed to make it even easier for the Find A Grave community to fulfill its original mission to capture every tombstone on Earth." 

Find A Grave founder, Jim Tipton, states on the site's FAQ:

     "Ancestry approached me a few months ago about working together and I was impressed with the creative, bright people they have that were really excited about the thought of being involved with Find A Grave. We have come up with an arrangement where Find A Grave will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ancestry, but we will continue to operate in the same way we always have. I'm going to keep running the site and all of the familiar admins that many of you have come to know over the years will still be here. But, I'll be armed with a full Find A Grave team that should allow us to push out improvements in a much at a much faster pace. Customer support should improve drastically, too."

Tipton and Ancestry both explain that they have exciting plans for the future of Find A Grave, including a much-longed-for mobile app that can be used on site by volunteers to record burial information.  Also, consider that the two sites have had a licensing agreement in place for over a year, with Find A Grave memorials appearing on Ancestry index searches, including active links to the memorials.

I suspect that the greatest concern generated by the announcement in the minds of Find A Grave volunteers/contributors such as myself is, "Will Find A Grave remain a free resource?"  Both Tipton and Ancestry have made multiple assurances that Find A Grave will continue to be a free resource and that "Find A Grave plans to continue its focus on honoring user's privacy and protecting their user generated content."  While I hope that both sites will honor this commitment and continue Find A Grave's free-access policy, ultimately only time will tell.

Tech Tuesday: CamScanner App

Here's a nifty little app for both iPhone and Android devices that I've found very helpful -- and it's free!  CamScanner by InSig Information Co., Ltd. uses your device's camera to 'scan' documents, photographs, whiteboards, newspapers, etc. quickly and easily.  Some of the in-app features include auto enhancing that help create sharp, clear images; document editing to add notes and make annotations; a sorting feature to allow you to sort those documents/photos into groups on your device; and the ability to email the document or upload to the Cloud.  The paid versions of the application have more features, of course, including document syncing and Cloud space.

I've found this app to be especially useful with hard to copy photographs in books.  Photocopy machines are fine, but CamScanner allows me to take a photo-quality scan of the image and instantly adjust the quality/sizing/borders.  It will even compensate for the slight skew caused by a bent page or book binding, adjusting the image and flattening it.

Take, for instance, the photo of the Primitive Baptist Church in Independent Hill, Virginia, that I posted earlier this year.  The photo was taken using CamScanner from "My Lynn Families, Vol. 1," by George H. Lynn, a limited edition vanity press published in 1977.  The original photo in the book is a tiny little insert photo with a handwritten caption.  Using the mobile app, I was able to 'scan' the page, isolate the photograph, and create a nice, clear image for my files.  (As a side note, the Primitive Baptist Church -- which was the church for so many of my Lynn and Cole ancestors -- no longer exists.  The photo in George's book is the only one I've ever seen of the building.)

Are there better scanning apps out there?  Very probably, but I've been so happy with this one that I haven't had the need to search for another.  (And did I mention that it's FREE?)

Tech Tuesday: FamilySearch Online Film Ordering

Ordering microfilm/fiche from FamilySearch is even easier than ever with the implementation of the site's online film ordering. Now, instead of going to your local Family History Center to submit your loan request, you can go to FamilySearch to search the catalog and place a loan order from the comfort of your own home. You can also select the Family History Center closest to you as your default location to receive the films (RELIC, for instance).

Users must be registered with FamilySearch to use online ordering and there is a fee for each microfilm/fiche ordered. The amount varies depending upon the length of time you choose to review the film. You can add multiple items to the shopping cart (no more filling out paper slips by hand!) and check out is easy. Payment is electronic, via credit card or Paypal. Once an order has been placed, the user will have 24 hours to change their mind. After 24 hours, order processing will begin and it cannot be canceled.

Please note: There is a known glitch with payment by Paypal. The Paypal payment window will sometimes refuse to load and prevent the user from completing the payment screen, leaving the order “pending” and unfulfilled. FamilySearch is aware of this “sporadic” issue with the Paypal window; however, until the problem is resolved, it might be better to simply use a credit card.

The URL for the FamilySearch microfilm ordering is:  www.familysearch.org/films

Tech Tuesday: BillionGraves or FindaGrave?

The World Wide Web is an amazing genealogical resource.  The amount of data that has been digitized in the past five years alone is astounding.  True, what can be found online only scratches the surface of the available historical and genealogical source materials all over the world, but the Internet has become an excellent place to start an ancestral search.  Personal and professional blogs, subscription databases, free records through digital libraries, and other online resources are becoming plentiful.  An online surname search that yielded no results in one week might be instrumental in breaking down a seemingly insurmountable brick wall with the same online search month later.

One recent newcomer to online research is BillionGraves.com, which utilizes the smartphone as a genealogical tool.  The site's goal is "[T]o provide an expansive family history database for records and images from the world’s cemeteries, all tagged with GPS locations."  After downloading the free application onto either an Android (Google) or iPhone (Apple) phone, a user would then take their device to a cemetery and begin recording the headstones using the app and the phone's built in camera.  The photos can then be uploaded to the BillionGraves site, where they will be tagged with the GPS location.  Don't have a smartphone?  The site is also looking for volunteers to transcribe photos that others have uploaded.  This searchable index of names will eventually be made available on both BillionGraves and Familysearch.org.

My first thought upon learning about the BillionGraves project was, "But what about FindaGrave.com?"  It, too, is a website devoted to indexing cemeteries and gravesites, with a free searchable database on FindaGrave.com as well as  Ancestry.com.  FindaGrave's mission "[I]s to find, record and present final disposition information from around the world as a virtual cemetery experience" and has been online since at least as early as 2000.  Like BillionGraves, it is dependent upon volunteers to expand their database.

So which site is better?  There are pros and cons to both.

BillionGraves.com:

1) A smartphone is required to create a "record" on the site.  Users are not able to create records or upload photos onto the site via computer, which begs the question -- How do you document an unmarked grave? 

2) Headstones are tagged with the GPS coordinates when uploaded to the site, making it simple for future visitors to locate the grave.

3) Currently, neither the smartphone application nor the website can warn a volunteer that they have just taken a duplicate photo of a headstone already recorded by another user.  The site recommends checking their website before taking a photograph to prevent duplication, which can be a tedious proposition when in a large cemetery.

4) Unmarked graves cannot be indexed.  No headstone, no record.

5)  Any site member can edit a BillionGraves record.

FindaGrave.com:

1) Records can be created via computer, without the necessity of a photograph.  Because of this, unmarked graves can be documented via obituaries, burial records, etc.  Photos can be uploaded from a computer and are not limited to the headstone. 

2)  FindaGrave does not have a smartphone application.  Records need to be added/updated via a computer and an internet connection.

3) When creating a new memorial, a search of the database is necessary to detect if there is a duplicate record.  There is no easy, "automatic" way to do so.

4) Individual records can only be changed by the member who created it; however, there is an easy way to notify the author of any changes/corrections.

I have been a FindaGrave volunteer for approximately four years but I have also downloaded the BillionGraves application to give it a spin.  No matter which site you prefer, they are both fee-free (for the moment) and excellent editions to the online genealogical toolkit.