I’ve been trying out the Billion Graves android app and website on the suggestion of fellow Genieblogger Jill Ball aka Geniaus.  Reading Jill’s blog this morning I see that she’s been using the app too.

Payneham Cemetery in Adelaide, South Australia is removing headstones and re-using old graves.  You can see my previous post about this here.  When Jill told me about Billion Graves I decided to go back to this cemetery and photograph more headstones for this project.  Billion Graves uses the latest smart phone technology to record not only a photograph of a headstone but also its location.  Smart phones with GPS capabilities can record location data along with each photograph. Those who install the Billion Graves app on their smart phone can photograph cemetery headstones, and upload them to the Billion Graves website.  When you get home you can transcribe them and then they are available for everyone to search and use.  All the cemeteries being photographed are plotted on a world map and the GPS coordinates show the location of each grave within the cemetery.

 

 

I found the app very easy to use.  The only problems I had are that there is no zoom feature when taking photos and the app often crashed and had to be closed and restarted.  It was a slow process on my phone as I could only take one photo at a time and wait for it to upload before taking another photo.  I don’t know if this is an issue with my phone or the software.  I may email Billion Graves and ask them about it because I LOVE the opportunity to record genealogy and history for everyone to see and use!!