Picture Use

All pictures I upload to Find A Grave are placed in the public domain. You may use them for any purpose, no credit required. If you would like a high resolution, uncompressed original, just contact me.

==========
SOAPBOX

With volunteer efforts like Find A Grave, all contributions are appreciated.

At the same time, I have noticed an increasing number of persons expressing displeasure that others would find their contributions valuable in their own family research. Specifically, there seems to be bad blood that photographs posted to Find A Grave would be used elsewhere.

Those of us who do this work know how time consuming it is. I see your statistics and you see mine, but what we cannot see is the hours and days and months spent walking cemeteries and toiling at the computer preparing images, and time spent uploading to Find A Grave.

What concerns me is recently encountering assertions of copyright and encumbrances placed on images. My opinion is, if your generous efforts are truly to honor the deceased and to preserve their memory, then set your images free. Please do not place a tremendous burden upon others who are seeking out their departed to manage usage rights on individual images. This is an impossible hurdle, and a demand that can only lead to hurt feelings.

One contributor noted on their profile that they had pulled all old family photographs from Find A Grave after discovering some had been reposted to Ancestry. Stated reason: "These images are personal to me." Please consider that they are likely personal - and treasured - by other descendants as well.

I am a professional photographer, and images are my livelihood. Even so, the images posted here and elsewhere on genealogical sites, I give absolutely freely for any use whatsoever. So what if I find my images on Ancestry.com or FamilySearch? I consider it an honor that these images are valued by descendants and family members of the deceased, and I realize that the proliferation of these images across multiple websites insures that the records we seek to preserve are most likly to be successful, in that there is redundancy in case of website closures or technical problems that may potentially cause data loss at any given website.

I'm not against credit where credit is due. The solution to this is embedding your creator information into the image metadata before uploading any images to the Internet. You can learn about metadata on Wikipedia, but the process is simple and can be automated.

Final point, these passages from the King James Bible for your consideration:

Matthew 10:8 - Freely ye have received, freely give.

2 Corinthians 9:7 - Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.

What more can I say? Thank you for your volunteer contributions to Find A Grave. Your generosity of time and effort is apparent; please complete the course and be generous in spirit also.

==========


I come from a family full of genealogists. Never thought I would be able to contribute, but not true.

My goals:

1) Publish family research, converting paper records to the web.

2) Preserve family photography.

==========

If you are related to me and have original images or negatives, please contact me.

==========

HOT TOPICS - SEE BELOW

1) GPS cameras - perfect for grave photography!

2) Book Review: A Graveyard Preservation Primer.

3) Special Note on Photo Requests

----------------------------------------------
2013 GPS CAMERA ROUNDUP

Update Notice, May 2013: For several years I have published a guide to GPS enabled cameras, evaluating their features and usefulness for cemetery photography. Find A Grave has limited the space available to me here, but if you contact me by email, I will send the full GPS camera information which I have been forced to delete here.

Basic GPS capture is simple. On an iPhone or iPad, it simply happens. There are a wide range of camera types that now do GPS, and cost is little more than comparable models. There are also some serious drawbacks, if you are concerned as I am about grave location accuracy. Contact me for the full scoop.

----------------------------------------------

Sorry, the other comments formerly present and noted above have also been deleted in order to shorten this bio to the required length. Again, contact me by email if there is an interest.

BTW - my email situation is hopeless, with over 1,000 new messages daily. Please include "Find A Grave" in the subject line of all emails. If I am away from my computer, your email will be buried in the onslaught, but at some point, I will search for Find A Grave in order to get caught up on Edit Requests for memorials I manage. Hopefully, you will not wait too long for a reply.

If you have an urgent situation, I am not adverse to taking calls on my cell phone, (903) 238-4465.

Picture Use

All pictures I upload to Find A Grave are placed in the public domain. You may use them for any purpose, no credit required. If you would like a high resolution, uncompressed original, just contact me.

==========
SOAPBOX

With volunteer efforts like Find A Grave, all contributions are appreciated.

At the same time, I have noticed an increasing number of persons expressing displeasure that others would find their contributions valuable in their own family research. Specifically, there seems to be bad blood that photographs posted to Find A Grave would be used elsewhere.

Those of us who do this work know how time consuming it is. I see your statistics and you see mine, but what we cannot see is the hours and days and months spent walking cemeteries and toiling at the computer preparing images, and time spent uploading to Find A Grave.

What concerns me is recently encountering assertions of copyright and encumbrances placed on images. My opinion is, if your generous efforts are truly to honor the deceased and to preserve their memory, then set your images free. Please do not place a tremendous burden upon others who are seeking out their departed to manage usage rights on individual images. This is an impossible hurdle, and a demand that can only lead to hurt feelings.

One contributor noted on their profile that they had pulled all old family photographs from Find A Grave after discovering some had been reposted to Ancestry. Stated reason: "These images are personal to me." Please consider that they are likely personal - and treasured - by other descendants as well.

I am a professional photographer, and images are my livelihood. Even so, the images posted here and elsewhere on genealogical sites, I give absolutely freely for any use whatsoever. So what if I find my images on Ancestry.com or FamilySearch? I consider it an honor that these images are valued by descendants and family members of the deceased, and I realize that the proliferation of these images across multiple websites insures that the records we seek to preserve are most likly to be successful, in that there is redundancy in case of website closures or technical problems that may potentially cause data loss at any given website.

I'm not against credit where credit is due. The solution to this is embedding your creator information into the image metadata before uploading any images to the Internet. You can learn about metadata on Wikipedia, but the process is simple and can be automated.

Final point, these passages from the King James Bible for your consideration:

Matthew 10:8 - Freely ye have received, freely give.

2 Corinthians 9:7 - Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.

What more can I say? Thank you for your volunteer contributions to Find A Grave. Your generosity of time and effort is apparent; please complete the course and be generous in spirit also.

==========


I come from a family full of genealogists. Never thought I would be able to contribute, but not true.

My goals:

1) Publish family research, converting paper records to the web.

2) Preserve family photography.

==========

If you are related to me and have original images or negatives, please contact me.

==========

HOT TOPICS - SEE BELOW

1) GPS cameras - perfect for grave photography!

2) Book Review: A Graveyard Preservation Primer.

3) Special Note on Photo Requests

----------------------------------------------
2013 GPS CAMERA ROUNDUP

Update Notice, May 2013: For several years I have published a guide to GPS enabled cameras, evaluating their features and usefulness for cemetery photography. Find A Grave has limited the space available to me here, but if you contact me by email, I will send the full GPS camera information which I have been forced to delete here.

Basic GPS capture is simple. On an iPhone or iPad, it simply happens. There are a wide range of camera types that now do GPS, and cost is little more than comparable models. There are also some serious drawbacks, if you are concerned as I am about grave location accuracy. Contact me for the full scoop.

----------------------------------------------

Sorry, the other comments formerly present and noted above have also been deleted in order to shorten this bio to the required length. Again, contact me by email if there is an interest.

BTW - my email situation is hopeless, with over 1,000 new messages daily. Please include "Find A Grave" in the subject line of all emails. If I am away from my computer, your email will be buried in the onslaught, but at some point, I will search for Find A Grave in order to get caught up on Edit Requests for memorials I manage. Hopefully, you will not wait too long for a reply.

If you have an urgent situation, I am not adverse to taking calls on my cell phone, (903) 238-4465.