IPhone/Android app for cemetery transcription

Have you seen this new site: www.billiongraves.com?

They have an iPhone/Android app where you can take pictures of graves while at acemetery, upload the picture from your phone to billiongraves site with GPS coordinates (!) and then you and/or the research community will transcribe the grave records. The site is only three weeks old, so they're working on a lot of improvements, but I think it's a great start! If you don't have time to go to cemetery to take photos, you can help transcribe user submitted photos. 

I was hoping findagrave would come out with a similar app...maybe they still will. In the meantime, I'm going to start using BillionGraves

Melissa

New Web search feature on ancestry.com

In Ancestry.com's monthly newsletter for July, an announcement was made about a new search feature: Web search.

If you are searching for family on ancestry.com, ancestry will now search web results in addition to their indexed and archived records. If your search generates a web record, ancestry will provide a link to the website. This way the website still gets traffic. Ancestry also provides a citation, so the website will get proper credit for their hard work. Ancestry users (no membership required for web search) can save the information found from the web search directly to their tree with the proper citation.

Right now there are only five or six websites participating, such as obits on rootsweb, during this trial run. (note: Websites not interested in participating can opt out and/or remove themselves from the search.)

Ancestry explains the process a lot better than I ever could, so check it out here:

http://boards.ancestry.com/content-publishers-feedback/3/mb.ashx

I'd love to see more sites participate, as I think this is a wonderful addition to ancestry.com.

I'd love to see more of rootsweb pages, findagrave, internment.net, the US Cemeteries Project, and more.

Which sites would you like to see added?

Melissa

Note: The thoughts expressed in this post are my own. Although I am a paid subscriber of ancestry.com, I was in no way paid or offered incentives to post...just a happy customer :)

Merry Christmas 1983

Merry Christmas! Posted In memory of Millie

Rocky Mountain Vacation: PageMaps Sketch Contest

Here are some pictures of my trip to the Rocky Mountains using Becky's sketch at PageMaps: storyboard kits sketch contest.

Advent Calendar: Childhood Christmas Tree Traditions Remembered

Although I have most of my Christmas shopping done already, the holiday season does not truly start for me until the Christmas tree is decorated. 

I can count the number of times my family had a “real” Christmas tree on one hand, so my family’s Christmas tree tradition didn’t involve the selection of a perfect tree, rather our goal was to create the perfect tree.  After turning on the Christmas music, a mix of NSYNC, Kenny Rogers, Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, and the Beach Boys, the first step was carrying the many boxes of decorations from the basement crawl space to the family room. My two sisters and I would joke about who could carry the heaviest boxes and call for Dad when things were too heavy. The boxes filled almost half of the family room, and seemed to fill more space each year.

We set-up two trees, a small one in the family room which would be decorated with homemade ornaments (and if we were being particularily adventurous, a popcorn garland we'd make while watching Rudolph), and a larger 7 foot tree was set-up in the living room by the bay window near the entrance of the house.

It always seemed like half the day was spent just putting together the artifical tree and fluffing the branches.  I usually let my sisters do the fluffing while I helped my dad untangle the lights and test each set to make sure none of the bulbs were dead.  After Mom was content with the fluffiness of the tree, which was not an easy process, I helped Dad string the lights and put the angel on the top of the tree. Then, Mom put ribbon, which was white and outlined in gold, around the tree.  We all helped to place the tree skirt around the bottom of the tree, a crocheted piece that Mom and Dad had made together when they were newlyweds. 

The remaining pieces to be displayed on and around the tree varied each year.  In the earlier years of my childhood, Dad set-up a square green turf under the tree on which an electric train circled the tracks.  As I became older, Dad started a collection of Department 56 “Christmas in the City” houses which he placed under the tree in addition to the train set.  Each Christmas we gave Dad a new house for his collection, and Santa placed a small figurine in his stocking that coordinated with the house we gave him. (I always wondered how Santa knew which house we were going to give to Dad.) The collection quickly grew from a small village to a large city and eventually replaced the electric train set.  (Now the collection is so big Dad separates the display between the two trees. In this year’s display, Chicago White Sox themed houses are displayed under the small tree and the remaining houses are strategically placed under the large tree.)

Mom sat on the floor and unpacked the ornaments.  She placed them on the floor, organizing them into piles based on the individual to which they belonged.  My sisters and I took turns placing our ornaments on the tree, while Mom reminisced about how each ornament was given to us and provided us guidance on the best place for each ornament.  (We received an ornament each year for Christmas, a tradition we continue today.)  Later during the week while we were at school, Mom would place the ornaments in “better” locations and hope we didn’t notice (less attractive ornaments would be placed on the back of the tree, while the breakable ornaments were placed on top).  Dad helped us if we were too short to reach a specific spot and also put up his ornaments, specifically his Star Trek, Chicago White Sox, Bears, Blackhawks, and Bulls themed ornaments. 

When we were finished, we sat in silence on the living room couch gazing at our masterpiece while Christmas music played in the background.

Although an adult and have my own tree, I continue many of the same traditions in my home. Decorating the tree is still one my favorite parts of the holiday season. 

Happy Holidays from my family to yours!