Canadian Headstone Photo Project

The mission of the Canadian Headstone Photo Project is to capture digital images of  headstones of our ancestors. As decades pass -- many stones are becoming harder, if not impossible, to read the inscriptions they originally contained. By archiving the images, the web site's owners hope to save these important records and also assist researchers using this valuable resource.

The Headstone Photo Project is a privately owned, non-profit, educational website operated by CanadianHeadstones.com.  Success of the project depends completely upon the activities of many volunteers and other individuals who contribute photographs to the archive.

The website covers all Canadian provinces and territories, and has sister sites that cover Ireland and the United States.

I found the site to be easy to use. You can search by cemetery or by surname. However, the site appears to be in its infancy of development and is still gathering information. I found very little information when searching for some of my ancestral names in New Brunswick and Quebec. The web site contains (or will contain) user-contributed information so photographs and transcriptions are appreciated. The date which the transcription was done is also given.

The Canadian Headstone Photo Project is available free of charge, both to upload and download photographs and transcriptions. While the site shows promise, keep in mind that its holdings are sparse at this time. You can access the Canadian Headstone Photo Project at http://canadianheadstones.com.

Similar projects can be found at the Ireland & U.S.A. Photo Projects page at http://canadianheadstones.com/other_index.htm.

Comments

[Margaret Moore]

I searched on the Canadian Headstone Site for my family name of CARLIN. Nothing. I have seen the headstones but your site does not show them. They are buried at Calumet in Quebec. Is your site in the progress of adding photos?

[Sherri]

Please be aware that there are already two other Canadian cemetery projects that already offer thousands of photos.

CanadaGenWeb's Cemetery Project
http://cemetery.canadagenweb.org
Online since 2004 it offers a directory of all known Canadian cemeteries with links to transcripts, indexes and photos. Over 100,000 photos are already offered with more added each month.

Canadian Gravemarker Gallery
http://www.gravemarkers.ca/
Expanded from the North-Eastern Ontario Gallery, it also offers hundreds of cemetery photos coast-to-coast

[Headstones]

I think this is a good idea recording all the different headstones created.

[Lucie LeBlanc Consentino]

Hi Dick,

From my perspective and the way I see it, I think it is unfortunate that the headstone projects that do exist pertain mostly to ethnic groups other than the Acadians who founded what is today Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton...

Because of that and as you know, I have over 60,000 photos of headstones on my web site for New Brunswick and a bit of Nova Scotia. I will soon have photos for Cape Breton posted as well.

Lucie

[Nancy]

Lucie, would you please share your website URL?

[David Reed]

This seems to be duplicating the efforts of Murray Pletcsch who has set-up the site http://www.gravemarkers.ca/. Perhaps they could get together and have only one site.

[Kate]

Those who are interested in Newfoundland cemetery photographs should look at the Stonepics project: http://www.stonepics.com/

There is an index here: http://ngb.chebucto.org/Stonepica/1stonepics-idx.shtml

The author has photographed the vast majority of headstones in Newfoundland and sells the images on CDs. It's a fairly impressive accomplishment.

I was able to find the gravestones of one branch of my family, but not the other. I think a lot of the wooden grave markers in St. John's burned down in the great fire of 1892, unfortunately. (My sense is that the family that had the preserved gravestones was more prosperous than the one I haven't been able to locate.)