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Do you use BillionGraves as part of your regular genealogy research process? Many family history enthusiasts overlook the site, and I would argue, perhaps miss out on it’s unique features.
Here are 3 reasons why you should give BillionGraves a try:
Each burial location is proven - Unlike Find-A-Grave, where memorials can be created without substantive proof of the burial, at BillionGraves, the approach is evidence first - every burial has a headstone and the GPS coordinates, thus proving the location of the burial.
You can get email alerts for specific surnames - have a unique surname in your family tree that you want to track? Working on a one name study project? BillionGraves offers email alerts every time a record is added for surname(s) that you tell the site you are interested in. What a fantastic way to keep up with new information as it gets added to the site. I personally use this feature for my Koonce and Vanderbilt surname studies.
Easy and fast contributions - hands down, the process for contributing to the site is WAY faster and easier than Find-A-Grave. Because the photo upload process starts with your smartphone, it’s as simple as going to a cemetery, snapping photo after photo (I’ve taken more than 800+ photos within a few hours), and uploading them to BillionGraves in batch (not one at a time) via your wifi connection. You don’t even have to type/transcribe the names! Other people can do that after you upload it. This makes all the difference in the world to me!
Of course, I do still use Find-A-Grave and as a site that has been around for decades at this point, it’s incredibly valuable. But, don’t sleep on BillionGraves. 😁
How often do you use BillionGraves?
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I never have used it much, but I checked it out just now and it is really nice that every one has a picture, for sure. Will definitely use it out more in the future, although there are far fewer graves up for where I checked than on Find-a-Grave. I do wonder how they would stack up if we only included profiles with photos, though...
Wrong! Especially when I want to see what other contributed/submitted - I HAD TO SUBSCRIBE TO BE MEMBER BEFORE I CAN EVEN SEE CLEAR PHOTOS! All photos there are deliberately fuzzy and unreadable unless you're member of BG first.