Volunteers

The Gravestone Photographic Resource project is an attempt to provide a much needed on-line resource for family historians as well as making a photographic record of as many grave monuments as possible..

The initial project aim was to place online details of all UK gravestones or monuments that are currently legible for people born before 1901. However this restiction is not at all rigid and there are now many monuments on the site of people born in the twentith century. Indeed, grave monuments from the mid twentieth century (1930 - 1970) are the most popular photos requested. Thus volumteers are now encouraged take photos of all legible monuments but if time is limited then to just concentrate on the older ones.

Besides English graves, the project has now been extended to cover other countries and now includes grave monuments from:

Australia

Canada

Cyprus

England

Hong Kong

Ireland

Malta

New Zealand

Scotland

USA

Wales

All the work of the project is carried out by volunteeers. They take the photographic images and often produce the input that is used to update the project data base and web pages.

The project initially concentrated on East Anglia where its founder and main volunteer (Charles Sale) was based. He has already indexed many church and municipal cemetaries in English counties of Suffolk and Norfolk.

The timetable for other areas will be very dependant upon where other volunteers are based and how much time they can give to the project.

You can help by becoming a volunteer.

Becoming a volunteer

Taking the Photos

The most important item of equipment you require to become a volunteer is a digital camera. The other bit of equipment you might need is a PC with a CD or DVD writer. If you do not have a CD or DVD writer then the Resource will send you a USB memory stick. The only other equipment that you might need is an old soft brush to gently remove any moss or lichen that sometimes makes the monuments difficult to read. A paint-scrapper can also be used for this purpose provided it is used with care so that the monuments are not damaged. However in general it is better not to touch the monument at all.

When you visit a churchyard always make sure that the first image is of something showing the church name and location – normally there’s a board near the entrance or if it’s a disused church there’s a notice in the porch. Then take a few images of the church itself from a variety of views – one of these will be used for the website page. if there is a cemetery layout plan then please also take a photograph of this.

Then attempt to photograph all the legible monuments – if they are so worn as to unreadable then omit them. Also omit any very modern graves unless they are the graves of people born in the mid 1900s or earlier. The details from all photos taken are added to the project database.

If you are able to, please take photos of any monuments within the church. These are especially useful as they are normally in very good condition and often contain lots of information. If the church has stained glass windows then check to see if there is a dedication at the bottom. If there is then take a photo of the window.

Please use the finest setting on your camera as it them makes it easier to enlarge the images on a computer. By doing this names and dates will sometimes appear that cannot always be seen by the naked eye.

In some cases it may be necessary to take more than one photo of a monument. For instance, if the monument is very tall then take one photo of the entire monument and another of just the text part. Another case where it would be necessary to take multiple photographis are those monuments that have writing on more that one face. If you do take more than one photograph of a monument then it is helpful if you later rename these so that they the same name as the initial photograph but with an additonal "a", "b", "c" etc.

After taking the images, they need to be transferred to your PC. It is helpful if you create a folder called “gravestone photos” and within this folder create separate folders of each churchyard you photograph. Store all the images for a particular churchyard in a separate folder named after the village. If the churchyard is from a town with several churchyards then create a folder with the name of the town and then create sub-folders with the names of the churches or cemeteries. If you photograph a very large cemetery it can be easier if you photograph it in sections and store each secion in a separate directory. Large municipal cemeteries will often have a layout plan which you can use to identify the different sections.

Extracting information from the images

Besides taking photos of the actual monuments, an equally important job that needs to be done before the information they contain can be added to the website is the extaction of the person information. However if you do not feel confident or have the time to index photos then please just send us the photos and we will index them.

The information that needs to be extracted for each person named on a monument is as follows:

• surname
• forenames
• year of death
• age
• year of birth
• relationship to the first person named on the monument
• title (eg military rank etc)

Please note that it is important to record details of every name listed on the monument. For example, often a monument will say wife of or husband of even though these people are not buried in the grave. By listing all names, the Resource is making it much easier for researchers to find missing members of their families.

Many monuments give the exact date of death but this does NOT need to be recorded, just the year. If either the age or the year of birth are not given then it is not necessary to calculate them - the website does that instead.