Midge Frazel over at Granite in My Blood has been blogging about the new Billion Graves app for the iPhone. I’ve downloaded it to my iPad and thought I’d take a look at the BillionGraves.com website. I took a test drive at Billion Graves. I think the site has potential. I’m hoping that some what I’ve seen so far is just glitches of a new system getting hit hard in its first weekend.
The stated goal of Billion Graves is “to provide an expansive family history database for records and images from the world’s cemeteries—but it’s not something we can do alone. We need you to help us by collecting images from your local cemeteries and transcribing the information those headstone images provide.” That’s a lofty goal, considering the reach of FindAGrave.com and its 62 million cemetery records. Will researchers and cemetery enthusiasts be willing to consider contributing to another site?
The search screen has four fields: first name, last name (required), birth year, and death year. I used the search term I use whenever I’m testing a new system: last name = smith. I got 44 results.
Person search and results
Above the results list is a dropdown menu to sort the results, with the options of Last Name A-Z, Last Name Z-A, First Name A-Z, First Name Z-A, Birth Date, or Death Date. However, none of the sort options would work. I tried on Firefox, Chrome, and Safari on my laptop and on Safari on my iPad. I tried selecting a sort option and then clicking “Search” again, I tried refreshing the page — the sort never changed.
I can understand the developers of Billion Graves wanting to keep their search form simple. However, if they get any sort of mass of records, there must be more search options. I can’t imagine trying to find my John Johnson only being able to search by name, birth year and death year. What if I didn’t know when he died? Having “place of burial” (even if it is just a state) is essential.
I clicked on the first result to see what the full entry looked like.
Full record
A couple of things puzzle me. First, why isn’t the name of the cemetery listed? If I share the URL to the page with this image, someone else visiting it has no idea where it is unless they click “View on Map.” When you do that, you are told that it is necessary to login to view that page. I hope that Billion Graves isn’t intentionally withholding the name and/or location of the cemetery unless the viewer is logged in. That’s not the way to make an inviting, welcoming site that people want to contribute to.
The second thing that puzzles me is the format of the date. Why show it in the record as “10/12/1946”? Those of us in the United States would probably interpret it as October 12, but it could be interpreted by Europeans as December 10. If the goal is to have a worldwide cemetery resource, the data need to be presented in a global-friendly format.
Billion Graves will allow you to search for a cemetery, using dropdowns for country, state, and county. You can also enter the cemetery name. I entered United States, Ohio, Fairfield and got 144 hits. There was the message “Showing only the first 100 results. Please narrow your search.” Why not list the first hundred and then give me the option to page through all of the cemeteries in that location? Also, the results came back in seemingly random order. They were alphabetical until the entry for Zwingly [sic] Cemetery, followed by County Infirmary and then the alphabet started over again.
Cemetery search and results
There appears to be a glitch in the system. When I clicked on a cemetery name, there was no option to search for another cemetery, so I used my browser’s back button. It took me back to the cemetery search, but the only options for states were Utah, Texas, and Tennessee (in that order). Out of curiosity, I clicked on Utah, and Beaver County was automatically selected. Thinking that maybe it was just showing cemeteries with records, I clicked on the first one. However, there were no records for it. When I used my back button to go back to the cemetery search page, United States and Utah were filled in — but the counties choices were Utah, Texas, and Tennessee. (I’m pretty sure those aren’t counties in Utah.)
Overall, I like the interface. It is easy to use (except where it isn’t) and it is easy to read. As I mentioned, I hope that some of what I’m seeing — sort options not working, cemetery name not displaying, glitch in the cemetery search — is the result of a young system getting hit hard.
Later this evening, I am going to create a BillionGraves.com account and see what, if anything, changes.
UPDATE: I’ve posted Part 2 of my review.
Amy's Genealogy, etc. Blog 
I’m glad you were able to explore BillionGraves so much. I tried it out first with my iPhone at the cemetery when I went to put some flowers on my Dad’s grave. I snapped a few photos and then went home to access the photos on my desktop computer and transcribe the data. I also wanted to try out the search, etc. from home. It took four or five emails back and forth to “Rob” at customer service to straighten out getting me on line via my home computer. I still can’t search or transcribe, but I could see the photo of my Dad’s grave. I’ll be back online with “Rob” tonight trying to see what’s up and to try out the other features of BillionGraves.
You’ll have to let us know how it goes after you get everything straightened out. Considering that their login page has as an option “Trouble verifying email?”, they must be having a fair number of problems.
Hi Amy,
Great review! I do think some of it is that they are new. I too really, really hope they look at all the feedback they are getting and make changes, incorporations, etc. I agree with the various aspects you point out here – you can read what I posted yesterday on my blog at http://goo.gl/geZfA. I personally am the most disappointed that they don’t have a social media presence and thus are not engaging in these conversations this weekend – this is a huge weekend too being Memorial Day Weekend!
Hi Taneya!
It is very surprising that in this day and age a company would roll out a website and app like that without any social media presence. Considering that they are wanting collaboration for content, not being able to connect via Facebook, Twitter, etc. is a major omission on their part.
I’m gonna give BillionGraves a try tomorrow, but I’m thinking that what I really want is an iPhone app that gives me easy access to the FindAGrave database.
I lot of us have been waiting for a FindAGrave app!
Pingback: Review of BillionGraves.com – Part 2 « Amy's Genealogy, etc. Blog
What I don’t understand is why we need another grave site — why not all work towards building the ones we have (especially findagrave.com). It seems like it would be better to have one or two comprehensive sites rather than a whole bunch of smaller segmented ones. Of course, since I don’t have an iPhone or Android, I may be in the minority.
Barbara,
I’ve wondered the same thing. Billion Graves even mentions it on their blog. According to BG, they tried contacting FindAGrave to work together, but never got a response. That’s a shame.
What FindAGrave is sorely lacking (IMHO) is a smartphone app like Billion Graves. Let me take a photo with my phone and upload it right from there. Of course, what BG is lacking is the critical mass of data that they’ll need to be a true “go to” database. Can they build it? That remains to be seen. Perhaps just the fact that they’ve launched with an iPhone app (with a promise for an Android app) and talk of allowing non-smartphone uploads, the folks at FindAGrave will see that they shouldn’t be resting on their laurels.
Amy
I concur with all of the comments I read before I am sending this one. My specific interest in BG was that something I read lead me to believe that the cellphone pics would simultaneously record the GPS of the specific graves. My browsing at BG has not revealed a specific GPS location yet. Maybe this can’t be a part of cell phone pics if there is no Wi=Fi at the cemetery, but I urge BG and FAG to both pursue the GPS of individual graves in their future development.
It depends upon the settings you have on your phone. If you have GPS turned off (or your phone doesn’t have GPS), the app won’t work. I was able to use the Android version of the app, but had to turn my GPS on first.
Ive tried Billion Graves on several occasions and find that it is not as comprehensive with information and most often give me that “Sorry” message. Ive had my best luck using “Findagrave.com”.
I doubt they’re even close to a billion graves, just yet.
Right now, FindAGrave definitely has more records. And you’re right — “Billion Graves” is more of a goal than a statement of how many records they have. It will be interesting to watch their rate of growth, especially now that they’re working on allowing uploads from something other than GPS-enabled smartphones.
They should make it free and open source 🙂
I will stick with Findagrave.
Many seriously into genealogy have already been involved with FaG and aren’t going to want to re-do everything.
The people who are not taking pictures can transcribe photos. Both photographers and transcribers are of equal value in the team work process Billion graves has created. Its worth starting over. Findagrave actually has just as many burial unknowns and names listed in wrong cemeteries sometimes by accident and or intentionally for the creator to boost numbers. People copying other peoples work with no way to confirm errors to boost numbers.Not to mention pet memorials.
Billion graves process forces other people to get out and transcribe their local cemetery not copy and paste other peoples online cemetery indexes in other states they have never set foot in…Not to mention the death indexes. The billion graves website needs some work like when it freezes it will duplicate a name entry and I have no way to delete it. when I link photos a name will show up in multiples when i search it.
I created (yet) another grave site – http://www.graveseekers.co.uk which currently has a small number of graves (and will be UK graves only). I thought FindAGrave very USA based and I like the idea of Billion graves but there are too many photos that are not totally clear.
Do you think there is room for another or should I add to the collections of FindAGrave and / or Billion graves
I’ve been contributing to Billiongraves.com for just a couple of months. I find it easy to use. Altho the intention of the site was to accommodate genealogists, I had a different kind of opportunity recently. While photographing gravestones, an elderly man and his companion were at the cemetery so that the man could visit his wife’s grave. Because the companion was unable to accompany him on a slippery hillside, I offered my services. He couldn’t remember exactly where her grave was (he was nearly 92). I asked what her name was, punched it into my phone, and voila…..her grave turned up. It was one I had photographed just the day before, and was within 30 feet of where we stood. When he departed, he told me that he just received the best Christmas present ever…..which made me feel like I had as well.
How come you haven’t met with the folks at findagrave. Findagrave has been around a lot longer, both sites are free; combining the two sites seems to be more logical than two competing sites. It’s hard enough getting new people interested in doing family research only to have another site to plague the hobby. I use findagrave a lot, and looking at billion graves seems like redoing work already done. I like the idea of both sites, and Interement.com, but again they seem to be competing against each other instead of working together for the betterment of our genealogy hobby. Less, as in less sites, is better…..
I thought it was absolutely useless.
I did a search for my grandfather’s grave and for a former fiance’s grave, both of whom were quite prominent people in the cities they lived in. Neither grave came up nor any other information and all I got was page after page stuffed with advertising.
I think Billiongraves.com is nothing more than a way for the owners of the site to make as much money from advertising as they possibly can by bouncing you around from page to page with little or no information on each page.
A complete waste of time, IMO
Michelle – the site is volunteer driven. This means, it takes volunteer effort for graves to be photographed and added. Being an individual of prominence doesn’t mean anything if no one in the area has taken the time to go to the cemetery and take pictures. :-). Being only two years old, there is still plenty of room for growth too of course! Have you perhaps helped out by aiding in transcriptions or taken photos and uploaded to the site? The more of us who help out and add information, the quicker the site grows, and the more useful it becomes to genealogists and family historians as a whole. It would be great if you tried contributing (if you’ve not) and shared your experiences back here. Thanks!