Cemetery Data and Photos

This page links to viewers of cemetery data and photos compiled for submission to the JOWBR burial database at JewishGen.org. Much of the data comes from the Jewish Genealogical Society of Montreal (JGS-Montreal.org), and the photos come from JGS-Montreal volunteers. The JGS-Montreal.org Projects page has details about the history of the effort.

The overviews have links to a variety of viewers and compilations of data. The viewers are primarily there to help with data entry and validation, and may show notes to myself (usually in red). The viewers are not intended for the general public, so user beware!

This and similar activities may be discussed in the Google group: JGS-M-Data

Usage Policy © Gary Perlman and Others

I'm not a lawyer, but here our policies on the cemetery data and photos:

• Data: I don't think that there are any legal protections to the data, but we would appreciate a request for and acknowledgement of use of larger numbers of records (over 25): Data provided by JGS-Montreal.org
• Images: Photographs taken by Gary Perlman are covered by copyleft, which means you can use them as you like as long as resulting copies or adaptations are covered by copyleft. The rest of the photos, were taken by volunteers who have agrreed to allow others to use their photos. We we would appreciate a request for and acknowledgement of use of larger numbers of photos (over 25): Photos provided by JGS-Montreal.org

Specials

• Cemetery Panoramas
• JOWBR Field Descriptions
• PicNear - browsing JOWBR

Procedures

Photos

• Camera: Use camera with GPS, if available.
• Card: 16GB memory card or larger, class 10. If your card is old, small, slow, better ones are inexpensive.
• Resolution: Take photos at 2500x2000 pixels (about 3MB per photo).
• Separate Photos: Headstone and footstones are usually photographed separately. To keep track of what I am doing, I always photograph the headstone first, and then any footstones. Photographs that include both headstones and footstones are also sometimes used.
• Keystoning: Minimize keystoning by aligning lens with imaginary line coming out of the centre of the stone; with large margins, this is not difficult. Always centre yourself (really, the camera) for each picture; don't photograph a headstone and then one or two footstones from the same place because you will get distorted images.
• Margins: Very large margins to allow rotation and cropping - stone takes up about 1/9th of photo.
• Backlighting: Avoid photographing stones with the sun behind them; if you can't, then adjust for backlighting. Cloudy days are often best.
• Shadows: Avoid shadows on footstones; stand to the side to get out of the line of light. Cloudy days...
• Reflections: Avoid reflections on shiny headstones (dark clothing, legs together).
• Cleaning: Clean stones as needed: bird droppings, covered: names, dates, Hebrew. I wear a work glove on on left hand for quick cleaning. Ice brushes/scrapers, gentle enough for cars, should be okay for stones, but be careful. Never touch a stone with anything metallic! If you wouldn't use it on your face, don't use it on a stone. Water and washcloths are often useful. There are limits to how much cleaning can be done; I can wear myself out after clearing thick mud from just a few stones.
• Editing: Rotate and crop (I use Click2Crop to save time) to be under 500 KB, per JOWBR. Hint: rotate a picture to make sure the middle lines of text are level.
• Saving: Save JPEG images at quality level 75. Your eyes will not notice the difference between that and higher levels, which would result in larger files.
• Naming: Name files with letters, numbers, underscore, per JOWBR. I name files with a cemetery identifier and an image number so that adjacent images can be found by fiddling with the file location.

Data

• Associating: Associate records with photos: Headstone, footstone, other. I find it useful to take context photos at the start and end of rows, showing the first stone and the next 5-10.
• Selecting: Identify one picture per record, per JOWBR. Optionally, combine pictures into one (do it online for free). Usually, I choose the photo that has information that is not in the record. I never choose a cemetery temporary marker (e.g., a stick) for a photo.
• Burial Dates: Cemetery dates are usually burial date, not the date of death.
• Other Info: In addition to names and dates, consider adding other information:
  1. obituaries: date of death, burial, sometimes birth; maiden name, nickname, spouse, parents; places of birth and death.
  2. death records: often has date of birth, parents, spouse.
  3. marriage records: spouse, often has date and place of birth, sometimes parents.
  4. Holocaust information: I always enter any Holocaust memorial information. In addition to the sorrow I feel, if a survivor or victim has descendants, I feel a special joy for them.
• Automatic Validation: Any automated data validation will find errors.
• Manual Validation: Final manual validation, ideally by someone who did not do the data entry, will find errors.
• Submission: Submit to JOWBR as a zipfile of images and spreadsheet by placing on a server (e.g., dropbox).
• Usage: As mentioned elsewhere, you are free to use these gravestone images in many ways, but I would suggest they not be used as a profile picture in a family tree. They are not pictures of people any more than the Lincoln Memorial is a picture of Abraham Lincoln. With information on them, they are documents - big stone documents - which can be cited as genealogical sources.