Many of you participated in our “Save or Graves” weekend, many thanks to all of you! Spotlight on this project and its participants around the world.
Tombstones and the names, dates, and other inscriptions on them will disappear someday. This is often sooner rather than later in Europe, where crowded cemeteries and churchyards lease expired grave plots to other families every day. To save this essential heritage and enable everyone to locate the tombs of ancestors, Geneanet launched in 2014 the “Save our Graves” project. The goal? To photograph the headstones and inscriptions on them, then to put them online at Geneanet where they are indexed and freely available to all. Thanks to you, more than 5 million graves have been saved!
Since together we are stronger, we asked you, from October 13th through 15th, to participate in our “Save our Graves” weekend. Thousands of you answered our call, and more than 152,000 photos of graves from France, Belgium, Slovenia, Switzerland, Spain, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Portugal, Sweden and more were uploaded to Geneanet. Bravo and thank you to all of our participants!
Special thanks to m2javorn1 from Slovenia, to chateau17 from France, to ogueydavidgmailcom from Switzerland, to colibri75 from Belgium, to bonuseventus from Spain, to woorspronk from Netherlands, to muelleran from Austria, to mseiberling from Denmark, to rbrauers from Germany, to lindarudholm from Sweden… for their participation!
Were you unable to participate last weekend? Rest assured, the project continues throughout the year. This page has the the relevant information: https://en.geneanet.org/a-cemetery-for-posterity
You can also, from your home, participate in indexing uploaded grave photos, by selecting “Graves” in our collaborative indexing tool: https://en.geneanet.org/indexation/
If you are an active participant in the “Save our Graves” project, or if you have made a major discovery thanks to it, let us know in the comments, mentioning where you have been taking photos.
Perhaps you haven’t previously participated in “Save our Graves”? Watch our video about it:
10/24/23
My grandfather is listed as in the Roman Catholic Cemetery which is wrong. Einar Jon Magnusson is buried in the Icelandic Lutheran Cemetery, with his wife, my grandmother, Olof Jorunn Magnusson. My grandfather died in October 23, 1963 and grandmother in April 15, 1983.
Answer from Geneanet: We aren’t sure which cemetery you mean, as these names appear to not be indexed. Do you have a link? What country is the cemetery in? Post in our forum please!
10/21/23
Many expats are found in Menton on the French south coast. The aim was to recover from TB. Many British people are buried there. Seen in the last century…
10/20/23
I am originally from the Netherlands and totally agree with Geneanet. My brother died in 1998 and my mother in 1999. As a family we decided to pay the maximum time allowed for a grave which is 30 years.
That means that in 2028 my brother’s grave will disappear and in 2029 my mother’s. I always go to the graveyard when I am visiting my home country. It will be strange not to go anymore but I feel peace knowing that my (grand) and children can see the graves of their ancestors on the net. I wish I could have done that with my ancestors.
10/20/23
Publish what cemeteries have been completed so people will not waste time duplicating the effort. I would not bother if I thought it had already been done & my 1st thought was that most would have been done by now. So don’t bother. John
Answer from Geneanet: Cemeteries where photographs have been taken can be found on this page. Save Our Graves volunteers check the list before contributing photos. There are a great many cemeteries throughout the world with few or no photos, on any database. In Europe however, churchyard grave plot leases are temporary (20 or 30 years) and graves are recycled every day, which is why documenting them is so important.
10/20/23
I visited the Bagneux cemetery in Paris where my ancestors rest. It is an absolute disgrace! No maintenance, or cleaning of alleys between tombs is effected. We are close to the 1st November. It would have been a great opportunity to clean up, creating thousands of ‘easy’ jobs. A sad affair…