The Global Cemeteries Project's First Cemetery Challenge!

If you've seen me around WikiTree, you may have noticed my very high level of enthusiasm and excitement when it comes to the Global Cemeteries Project, which a few of us started up in June (though the Australian WikiTreers had had their own regional version for some time). I'm so happy to finally have a place to upload tombstone photos that also 1) doesn't take ownership of the photos away from me, and 2) allows me to link up those tombstone photos to other information about the people buried there, and ultimately to the global family tree.

Well, this excitement, when combined with my naturally competitive nature, could only lead to one thing: a challenge! Thus was the September 2014 Tombstone Photo Challenge born. The challenge is to photograph as many tombstones as possible during the month of September.

My inspiration for this particular challenge came from my location: Winnipeg, Manitoba, often nicknamed Winterpeg. A city in which the cemeteries spend half the year buried under a substantial quantity of snow. So I wanted to make sure I took lots and lots of pictures before that happened, so that I'd have plenty to do transcribing them and creating WikiTree profiles for them over the winter.

So if you haven't joined the Global Cemeteries Project yet, now's the time! Join in the challenge and see if you can lurk around more cemeteries than anyone else! ;) Compete for bragging rights and a sweet profile badge, all the while helping to improve WikiTree's coverage of the world's cemeteries. And as I can already say from experience, before too long you'll be getting messages thanking you for posting a picture of someone's ancestor's tombstone. And that's a pretty great feeling.