 | |
| Founded | 1 July 2009 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Jim McKane |
| Type | Registered Charity |
| Location |
|
President | Steve Fulton, UE |
| David Thompson Ben Dawson Cliff Joe Wilson | |
| Website | canadianheadstones |
Canadian Headstones is a project to capture digital images and the complete transcription of cemetery stones. It is a web-based Canadian non-profit corporation run completely by volunteers.
Jim McKane began his genealogical quest in the early 1970s, when his father convinced him to become the custodian of the pedigree for his Lyons Clan Reunion in Chinguacousy Township, Peel County, Ontario. In April 2009, while volunteering as assistant webmaster of a website, he found a website archiving headstones for those who were born in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, the home of his ancestors. [1]
Realizing the value of the information to genealogists and family historians, he set out to research the possibility of creating an archive for Canadian headstones. While there were a number of websites storing photos of gravestones, none also included the inscriptions on the gravestones. The majority of existing sites also had either no search engine feature or very poorly constructed search features. The result was the creation on 1 July 2009 of CanadianHeadstones.com. [2]
The bylaws of Canadian Headstones state that the purpose of the corporation is: the corporation shall gather, archive, publish and disseminate genealogical, historical data or other records of interest to family historians, genealogists or other researchers. [3]
Canadian Headstones relies on volunteers, including genealogy enthusiasts, to upload photos. [4] The site steps a contributor through uploading a photo, editing it, choosing a county and cemetery, entering the names and inscription. [5] It is then checked by a coordinator who assists the contributor to fix any problems.
The site also uses a soundex system to allow searches for sound-alike names, to account for spelling variations, typos in entries or degraded quality of older headstones. [2]
The section of the site devoted to Quebec is available in both French and English. [6]
By 2012, CanadianHeadstones.com had 348,000 records submitted to the site and was growing at a rate of 10,000 entries per month. [7] By 2015, the site had more than 1 million records. [8]
The website includes a subproject to photograph gravestones of Canadian soldiers buried in cemeteries abroad, with more than 1,000 graves photographed by January 2015. [9] The site also documented Halifax Memorial at Nova Scotia's Point Pleasant Park, devoted to the Canadian sailors who died during World Wars I and II, with close-up photos of all the panels with the names of the soldiers.
Genealogy is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members. The results are often displayed in charts or written as narratives. The field of family history is broader than genealogy, and covers not just lineage but also family and community history and biography.
Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York, founded in 1838, is the first municipal cemetery in the United States. It is the burial site of Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass. Situated on 196 acres (79 ha) of land adjacent to the University of Rochester on Mount Hope Avenue, the cemetery is the permanent resting place of over 350,000 people. The annual growth rate of this cemetery is 500-600 burials per year.
A headstone, tombstone, or gravestone is a stele or marker, usually stone, that is placed over a grave. It is traditional for burials in the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religions, among others. In most cases, it has the deceased's name, date of birth, and date of death inscribed on it, along with a personal message, or prayer, but may contain pieces of funerary art, especially details in stone relief. In many parts of Europe, insetting a photograph of the deceased in a frame is very common.
Tombstone tourist describes an individual who has a passion for and enjoyment of cemeteries, epitaphs, gravestone rubbing, photography, art, and history of (famous) deaths. The term has been most notably used by author and biographer Scott Stanton as the title of his former website and book The Tombstone Tourist: Musicians (2003), about the lives and gravesites of famous musicians.
Find a Grave is a website that allows the public to search and add to an online database of human and pet cemetery records. It is owned by Ancestry.com. Its stated mission is "to help people from all over the world work together to find, record and present final disposition information as a virtual cemetery experience." Volunteers can create memorials, upload photos of grave markers or deceased persons, transcribe photos of headstones, and more. As of 2023, the site claimed more than 226 million memorials.
Fort Gaspareaux was a French fort at the head of Baie Verte near the mouth of the Gaspareaux River and just southeast of the modern community of Strait Shores, New Brunswick, Canada, on the Isthmus of Chignecto. It was built during Father Le Loutre's War and is now a National Historic Site of Canada overlooking the Northumberland Strait.
Interment.net is a United States-based website containing a free online database of transcriptions from headstones, intended to be a research tool for use by genealogists and historians. As of 2006, the site was one of the top 15 free genealogy websites on the Internet. Its cemetery database to date includes more than 6 million cemetery records from around the world.
The Old Burying Ground is a historic cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. It is located at the intersection of Barrington Street and Spring Garden Road in Downtown Halifax.
The Centerville Pioneer Cemetery, also known as the Centerville Presbyterian Cemetery or Alameda Presbyterian Cemetery, is located at the corner of Post Street and Bonde Way in Fremont, California. It was officially designated as a state cemetery in 1858 or 1859, depending upon the source, and was listed in the California Register of Historic Resources in 1976.
Garrison Cemetery is a cemetery located on the grounds of Fort Anne in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, Canada. It is located next to the old Court House, at the intersection of George St. and Nova Scotia Trunk 1.
Kinne Cemetery, also known as the Glasgo Cemetery and Old Kinne Burying Ground, is a historic cemetery in Jarvis Road in Griswold, Connecticut. The earliest marked stone is for Daniel Kinne who died in 1713. In the 1930s, the inscriptions of 79 stones in the Kinne Cemetery were recorded for the Hale Index. There are around 80 fieldstones with no carving or identification, but it is unknown if this stems from wearing of the gneiss stone or that there were no skilled carvers locally available. The seven carvers that have been identified are Lebbeus Kimball, Jotham Warren, Josiah Manning, Peter Barker, Mr. Huntington of Lebanon, E. Marston of Mystic Bridge and O. Doty of Stonington. The National Historic Register of Places nomination notes, "the cemetery is significant artistically because the carving on the stones gives many good examples of the funerary art that was characteristic of the 18th and 19th centuries in New England." The cemetery is notable because of the burial of Isaac C. Glasko, the namesake of the village of Glasgo, and a prominent African American land-holding man who ran a blacksmith shop that was important to the marine industry of the area. The cemetery was made a part of the Connecticut Freedom Trail in 1995 and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 12, 2001.
Jews' Gate Cemetery is a Jewish cemetery located on Windmill Hill within a nature reserve in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. Also known as the Windmill Hill Cemetery, it is the site of the earliest known Jewish burials in Gibraltar. The cemetery opened by 1746 and closed in 1848. It is the burial site of a number of Gibraltar's Chief Rabbis. The graveyard is protected by the law of Gibraltar.
The Ontario Genealogical Society, operating as Ontario Ancestors since early 2019, is the largest organization devoted to research into family history in Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1961 as a Registered Charity corporation, the Society has grown by 2020 to include 30 local branches covering all of Ontario and five Special Interest Groups.
TheGenealogist is a family history website that provides subscriptions for researchers to help search genealogy records in the United Kingdom. The site is run by Genealogy Supplies (Jersey) Ltd which is part of the S&N Group. Among its accomplishments, the company has completely transcribed the England and Wales censuses from 1841 to 1911 inclusive. The site has been identified as among "the most prominent" subscription-based genealogy websites.
The Family History Research Wiki provides handbook reference information, and educational articles to help genealogists find and interpret records of their ancestors. It is a free-access, free-content, online encyclopedia on a wiki, hosted as part of the FamilySearch site. It is sponsored by FamilySearch, a non-profit organization, and a genealogical arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Anyone may read any of the articles, and almost all articles can be edited by registered users (contributors); registration is free.
The Genealogy Society of Norway was established on January 12, 1990 and is Norway's largest genealogical organization.
The Old Scots Burying Ground is a historic cemetery located on Gordon's Corner Road in the Wickatunk section of Marlboro Township, in Monmouth County, New Jersey. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 15, 2001, for its significance in history and religion. The Old Scots Burying Ground is about an acre in size, about 195 feet above sea level and dates back to 1685. The total number of burials at the cemetery is not precisely known, suggested by Symms, "There are a large number of graves in Old Scots yard without any inscribed stones". Some reports place the number as at least 100 known graves with most headstones of brown sandstone. However, more recent research using ground penetrating radar reported by the Old Tennent Church in 2001 has put the number of confirmed sites at about 122 graves with a possible 140 more unmarked; placing the number at about 262 total graves in the cemetery. In 1945, in an attempt to clean out the site of vegetation and over-growth, a bulldozer was used on the property and as a result some headstones were dislodged and broken stones removed. The defining structure in the cemetery is a tall monument to Rev. John Boyd, created by the J&R Lamb Company. Built to commemorate the first recorded Presbyterian ordination of Rev. John Boyd. The monument is currently owned by the Synod of the Northeast who holds the property deed but it is maintained by the Old Tennent Church. The last identified burial was in 1977.
Dutchess County Historical Society, located in Rhinebeck, New York, was formed in Pleasant Valley, New York May 26, 1914 and received its Charter from the Regents of the University of the State of New York in 1918. Its mission is to discover, preserve and share the local area's history and artifacts from the time of its earliest people to the present.
Children of Israel Cemetery is a Jewish cemetery in the Transcona suburb of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. It operated from 1883 to 1933. The cemetery reached a total of 113 graves before it was closed due to frequent flooding. After decades of vandalism and the toppling of headstones due to the elements, Shaarey Zedek Synagogue of Winnipeg negotiated the legal transfer of the burial ground to their management in 1957. The cemetery was then enclosed by a high chain-link fence, and the headstones were laid flat to the ground and embedded in concrete to prevent further damage. The synagogue allows access to the cemetery to those who wish to visit the graves of their family members.
Hebrew Sick Benefit Cemetery is a Jewish cemetery in Winnipeg, Canada. Founded in 1911, it contained approximately 3,500 graves as of 1996. It also contains a war memorial to fallen Jewish servicemen in World War II.
