Fairmont Find-A-Grave workshop empowers cemetery sleuths with new app

Dec. 10—FAIRMONT — Genealogy enthusiasts now have an added tool to use in tracking down that long, lost relative.

The uber popular website Find-A-Grave, which is now owned by Ancestry.com, has launched an app that uses Geographic Information System mapping. Friday morning, officials with the West Virginia Preservation Alliance held a workshop in Fairmont to explain how to use the new app.

"This workshop is a way for me to get other people involved in documenting our cemeteries and letting them know that the Find-A-Grave app and website is not just to find loved ones, it can be used to document local cemeteries and help with their preservation of the information they contain," said Joni Morris, an AmeriCorps member serving the West Virginia and Regional History Center at West Virginia University who has used Find-A-Grave for close to 10 years.

Preservation Alliance Manager Jamie Billman said part of her job is to provide workshop opportunities to AmeriCorps members and the public. When she started the job, she wanted to get a feel for what people would want classes on.

"I did my own polling to see what people would be interested in and one common topic people wanted was more information on how to clean, restore and document cemeteries. Joni and I go back a little bit and I know she loves Find-A-Grave. She uses it to document cemeteries, which is the side of things I think more people are unfamiliar with because they just think of Find-A-Grave as a way to find their ancestors, but the back side of things is that people had to put that information there," Billman said.

Marisa Terwilliger, an AmeriCorps member with the Appalachian Forest National Heritage Area who serves at the Barbour County Historical Museum and Philippi Convention and Visitors Bureau drove just under an hour to attend the workshop. She said she is planning a cemetery cleanup in Barbour County and wanted to incorporate a Find-A-Grave project in tandem with the clean-up.

"I definitely think I will use Find-A-Grave and I'm already seeing requests for that graveyard, so I think there's definitely a way I'll be able to incorporate it. ... I want to give everyone something to do, so having people working with the Find-A-Grave requests will help with that," Terwilliger said.

At the workshop, which was open to the public, guests were able to download and test the Find-A-Grave app and ask questions. They later met at Maple Grove Cemetery, where they used the App to check graves of veterans from the Revolutionary War to the present to see if they had updated coordinates, pictures and information. They also labeled graves that didn't have veteran markings in preparation for Wreaths Across America.

Wreaths Across America will be held on Dec. 17 and is a nationwide event used to honor veterans who have passed away. In Fairmont, the Maple Grove Cemetery, which was established in 1808 and is one of oldest cemeteries in the county, will lay wreaths on 275 veterans' graves there.

"We've been working with them on ways we can help them with boots on the ground work at their cemetery — cleaning, restoration and now documentation," Billman said.

Morris said being able to connect with family history and help preserve other people's history is very worthwhile.

"It allows people no matter where you are, in the country or world, to connect with their ancestors and connect with people in their family that they might not ever be able to see where they're buried. With Find-A-Grave and Ancestry, you are able to see pictures and read about it, just like you were there.

"To somebody like me, that's an important part of my family history and there are lots of people who might feel the same way, but are unable to travel to see their grandmother or grandfather's gravestone," Morris said.

She encourages everyone to consider downloading the app and testing it out.

"A lot of people might think of walking through the cemetery as kind of creepy, but it's actually a very peaceful thing. The Find-A-Grave app, with young people on their phones, ... you can label a grave in the app and you don't realize that you're documenting something that is going to last for posterity," Morris said.

Morris said she would be eager to have more workshops in the future. For more information contact Jamie Billman with the West Virginia Preservation Alliance by email at jbillman@pawv.org.

Reach me at sshriver@timeswv.com or 304-367-2549.