Looking for dead people?

A new genealogy research tool that will be featured at the GRHS Rapid City convention is the Genealogy Database. This is one of the fastest ways to find those dead ancestors and connect with live researchers! You simply search on the surname…or location….or cemetery you’re interested in. Your search results can show other researchers working on that surname, specific data with source notations about your ancestor that someone else may have submitted, photos, and headstones related to your family.

If you find another researcher’s data is in error, you can submit a correction. If you find another researcher you want to connect with, you can e-mail them directly.

This new database has so many capabilities that a display workstation will be featured at the convention for demos of the database features and for you to get help with your questions about how to use it.

Of course, the value of this compilation of German-Russian family information grows with each new person willing to share their data and photos.

“GRHS members have a history of freely sharing data with each other,” explains Rich Aspenleiter. He and his wife Gayla, with technical assistance from Murray Gauer, implemented the database. “We just wanted to find a way to make it easier for all researchers.”

From just a few thousand individuals, the database has grown to several hundred thousand names. It is growing each day as more researchers send in GEDCOMs of their personal family or village files to be shared. Recently the ability to include photos of people and headstones was also added. We are just starting to add photos of headstones from small Dakota and Canadian country cemeteries and cemeteries in Ukraine – a way to visit them virtually if you can’t make it there yourself!

Some of the comments from GRHS members:
“The Genealogy Data Base project is wonderful!”
“It is great to see all the family information being made available to other genealogists.”
“It is really nice to see it growing!”

Can’t make it to the convention for the demo? The handy online guide will help walk you through how to use to the database and how to submit your GEDCOM to be included. And you can also see examples of some of the search windows.

But if you’re coming to Rapid City, be sure to B.Y.O.G. Bring Your Own GEDCOM!