Photographing Headstones

This is a good project for you, a church, scouts, community or any group.

Things you may need:

• Camera, digital is best.
• Tripod for a sharper picture.
• Large sheets of paper and charcoal for weathered headstones.
• A brush & water for cleaning.
• Something to clear grass or weeds away from the face of the stones.
• A graphics editing program.

First visit the cemetery and find out which direction the stones are oriented. It is best to shoot the stone just as sunlight barely crosses the face and the inscription is still shaded. Might even be a good time to clean and clear anything that may of grown over the stone. There has been too many time I could of kicked myself for not sweeping off the stone or I have a weed going across the picture.

When the light is best have your camera on a tripod and use a timer or remote for best results. There is less of a chance of you shaking the camera when you take the shot. Most newer stones you won’t have to worry about light, but nothing is worse than getting home and you have an unusable picture. Zoom into the picture to make sure you have a good clear shot, and then move onto the next stone. After good light has past move to the stones that light isn’t an issue or the weathered stones. For the weathered stones use the paper & charcoal to make a rubbing of the inscription & photograph the headstone and rubbing.

http://www.sampubco.com/gpp/crop.htm is a good site for showing how to crop the picture to put it online, but first I like to make a good quality file for 4x6 digital prints. Picasa is my favorite http://picasa.google.com/ and it’s free and doesn’t effect your original. For prints I like original size with a quality 70, online 600 pixel width a quality of 40-50 or what ever the website requires.

Where to put the images would be the county website on www.usgenweb.org, www.findagrave.com, and if a state is available http://gpp.jlconsulting.com/. They all have limits on size of file or pixel size of the picture. This is why I recommend making a good quality 4x6 file, there are a lot of websites that have free space for your digital pictures. Make a public web album and people can download or order prints for themselves.

It is a wonderful feeling when someone thanks you for making a picture available.

Ancestry.com at the Bouse Library

Early this week the Bouse Library received an e-mail from Ancestry.com offering to sell the full Library subscription to them for $995. Almost 1/2 price. The offer expires on June 30, 2007 so they have to do it right away.

Since we had collected $674 between the winter Genealogy Classes, the money for shipping the books and the winter Computer Classes, the Friends of the Bouse Library Board offered to pay the difference and get the full library subscription this month. We will repay the Friends of the Bouse Library in the fall and winter to cover the difference of $321. Hopefully we will collect that via the genealogy classes, computer classes and donations next season.

The great thing about this is that more than 2 people can use it at a time. Also we are the only Public Library west of Phoenix that will have it available, which should (we hope) bring in more people. I would like to suggest they we see if we can get a donation box just for Ancestry.com placed in the Library to help cover the cost and maybe pay for it next year also.

As we had discussed earlier, access will only be available at the library. It will be open to anyone visiting the library, not just the Bouse Genies.

Also, this subscription price will set the cost we will have to pay in the future. We will not have to go back to the full $1700 price when we renew.

We will advertise the fact that it is available at the library and hopefully it will bring in more members or visitors.

Carol Brown

Note: The money has just been OK, will post later when it is up and running.

Free Genealogy Web Courses

BYU Independent Study Free Web Courses http://ce.byu.edu/is/site/courses/freecourses.cfm. There is a 1 time registration, then you just log in using your email address.

Family History/Genealogy - Introductory
FHGEN 68 — Finding Your Ancestors
FHGEN 69 — Providing Temple Ordinances for Your Ancestors
FHGEN 70 — Introduction to Family History Research
FHGEN 80 — Helping Children Love Your Family History

Family History/Genealogy - Record Type
FHREC 71 — Family Records
FHREC 73 — Vital Records
FHREC 76 — Military Records

Family History/Genealogy - Regional and Ethnic
FHFRA 71 — France: Immigrant Origins
FHFRA 72 — France: Vital Records
FHFRA 73 — France: Reading French Handwriting
FHFRA 74 — France: Genealogical Organizations and Periodicals
FHFRA 75 — France: The Internet and French Genealogy
FHFRA 76 — French Research: Paris
FHFRA 77 — French Research: Alsace-Lorraine
FHGER 71 — Germany: Immigrant Origins
FHGER 72 — Germany: U.S. Sources and Surname Changes
FHGER 73 — Germany: Jurisdictions, Gazetteers, and Maps
FHGER 74 — Germany: Reading German Handwriting
FHGER 75 — Germany: Calendars and Feast Days
FHGER 76 — Germany: Vital Records
FHHUG 71 — Huguenot Research
FHSCA 73 — Scandinavia: Jurisdictions, Gazetteers, and Maps
FHSCA 74 — Scandinavia: Reading Gothic Script
FHSCA 75 — Scandinavia: Church Records and Feast Days
FHSCA 76 — Scandinavia: Census Records
FHSCA 77 — Scandinavia: Probate and Other Records

Timeline and Map Views Searches

Google is experimenting with some different type of searches. What caught my eye was the Timeline and Map Views. It works best for the queries listed on their page http://www.google.com/experimental/, but I tried some of my own & thoroughly loved it!!!

The Timeline Search just add "view:timeline" to your search & it will categorize your results by date. Great if you just want to search a name during a certain period of time.

The Map View I don't see much difference in just plain old Google Maps. If you want to give this a test drive just add "view:map" to your search.

Maybe if enough people give feedback how much they like it they will get it fully functioning sooner.