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At Grave Mappers, we are genealogists, researchers, historians, hobbyists, and cemetery lovers who have something in common—we want to preserve the priceless records found in cemeteries. Each of us has done this in our own unique way—walking through small deserted cemeteries and transcribing the headstone information; photographing headstones and sharing them on the internet; indexing and publishing burial listings from the cemeteries we visit.

NAMES IN STONE is a unique online repository designed to help researchers find and document cemetery records AND maps. Maps that show each grave’s location allows the visitor to visualize families, and fill in the missing pieces to the family puzzle—much like our friend did on his visit to the two little cemeteries in Alabama. We encourage you to contribute to NAMES IN STONE by inviting your local cemetery to participate, by using the on-line mapping tools to add smaller cemeteries, and by sharing photos and other information with the online community.

Footnote.com for Historians, Genealogists and Many Others There's a new player on the genealogy field, and their launch this week announced a partnership with the foremost resource in the United States. The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration announced a major new initiative to scan millions of historical documents and to make them available online. The documents will appeal to many different interests: genealogists, historians, re-enactors, railroad enthusiasts, aviation historians, and many, many others. Approximately 4.5 million pages are available at launch, and millions more historical documents will be digitized and placed online each year. The project is being launched in a partnership with a commercial firm called Footnote, Inc. The company's new web site went "live" at noon Eastern Time on Wednesday, January 10. I have spent some time using Footnote's new service and thought I would describe my experiences. Perhaps I should start with a bit of introduction. I suspect that many newsletter readers have never heard of Footnote, Inc. and may wonder, "Who is this new company that is going to digitize millions of National Archives records? Can they really make it happen?" In fact, Footnote, Inc. has been in business for years under the name iArchives, Inc., and has been involved in numerous genealogical and history-related high-tech projects. The company has been a contractor to several commercial and non-profit organizations, but its own corporate name has rarely been in the spotlight. The company has extensive experience in high-volume scanning of old records. About a year ago iArchives decided to launch its own product. While preparing for the launch of its huge new database, the company also changed its name to Footnote, Inc., to better reflect the collaborative model of its new business. NOTE:

The Ewell Sale Stewart Library of the Academy of Natural Sciences houses many rare, beautiful, and important works on the natural sciences, books that most people will never see in their lifetimes. These books were published over the last five centuries, and document the discovery of plant and animal species by early explorers as they traveled the world. By publishing the pages from these books digitally and providing access on the web, the Library hopes to share them with scientists, scholars, and the public.