New tombstone feature at WorldVitalRecords.com to help locate burial locations of loved ones
This past week we talked to nearly 400 people at the BYU Family History and Genealogy Conference. We really enjoyed telling everyone about one of our new features. Now, when you look at one of our death records, you will also see tombstone icons that are placed on a Google map.
The tombstones represent cemeteries that are located near the place where the individual died. I think this is a great resource because it gives people extra information as to where the individual may have been buried.
Here is how it works:
- Go to WorldVitalRecords.com.
- Fill in at least one of the fields labeled Surname, Given, Date, or State and click Find.
- Next, click on the record that you wish to view.
- You will be directed to a full-record page view, in which you will see a Google map, with the cemeteries located nearby.
Try it out. Use this new feature to discover where your ancestors are buried.
August 15th, 2006 at 2:19 pm
Something that might go along with this would be either approaching Jim Tipton over at Find A Grave about sharing his database of nearly 12 million graves (probably won’t happen), or, since Findagrave submitters are able to download all of their own data from the site, offer a way for users to contribute their own Findagrave data to WorldVitalRecords. With a little creative data parsing, perhaps the SSDI information could be tied to the Findagrave information, giving users an actual burial location instead of just cemeteries near where a person died.
And, if that level of user interaction ever comes about, it would be wonderful to be able to tag listings like that with information like newspapers where their obituary appeared.