Gravestone Photo Project – Search gravestone photos for free

The Gravestone Photo Project came into being from the brainstorming of one IAGenWeb county coordinator and his son. The first Gravestone Photo Project was from Iowa and now, at least 15 other states have their own Gravestone Photo Projects! As of today, those states include Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Maine, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Utah! The code to create a gravestone project is free and available at the Gravestone Photo Project website.

You will not believe your eyes when you visit one of the Gravestone Photo Projects. These beautifully constructed sites are run entirely by volunteers and the photographs are contributed by the user community! The primary goal of this project is to assemble together in one location photographs of the gravestones of your ancestors. This is such an important project, as you know, because gravestones can deteriorate over time, disappear, or get vandalized. It is also serving as a way to save the records of burials of our ancestors.

From the home page of one of the Gravestone Photo Projects, you can search the photographs in the database by choosing the county with a surname or a partial surname. When the results are returned, there is a list of names and the cemetery name and county that gravestone is located in. Click on the name of choice, and when the record comes up, you will see the picture of the gravestone along with any comments made by the contributor as well as other photos that contributor may have uploaded. You also have the opportunity to connect with the person who submitted the photo by sending them an email. Back in the results list, if you click on the name of the cemetery, you can get a list of all the records for that cemetery. This may help you locate other ancestors or perhaps neighbors and friends of your ancestors that might be buried in the same cemetery.

If you would like to upload your own photos, it is really simple. Click on the “Submit a Photo” button on the top navigation bar. Here you can upload a picture from your computer. You then have the opportunity to type in the person’s name, birth and death date, and any explanatory information about the gravestone. It is also possible to add several people to one gravestone in the case of family headstones.

I encourage you to visit this great free genealogy resource and also contribute if you can. I uploaded my Iowa ancestors to the site several years ago and am glad I did! It’s always nice to give back when you can. Visit Gravestone Photo Project today!

photo credit: praesentire