Visiting Elmwood Cemetery / RestingSpot Review

     Mom and I left the South Carolina Archive around 3:30 pm and headed a few miles over to Elmwood Cemetery. We'd tried to get there the day before, but the office closes at 4:30 pm and we hadn't made it. My Great-Great Grandparents, John and Ida Hyler / Huyler are buried in Elmwood Cemetery. A volunteer had taken photos of the graves years ago, but I wanted to visit the actual location while we were in the area.

     Elmwood is a large cemetery, so we had called up the day before to ask for the locations of the graves. When we went into the office, we discovered that the staff had pulled up a listing of the burial and marked the location on a map. Then, the lady actually drove out to the location while we followed in our car. Talk about customer service!



     While we were there, we used my mom's Android to add the graves to two cemetery websites: BillionGraves and RestingSpot.  As usual, I had trouble getting and maintaining a GPS signal with the BillionGraves app and the new "linking photos" feature didn't work as it was supposed to. 
     This was the first time I used the RestingSpot app.  I'd previously signed up for a RestingSpot account and downloaded it to my mom's phone. I hadn't tried out the app or really knew how it worked. Well, here's how it works:

1. Log in and click "Add RestingSpot"
2. Create the listing by filling in names and dates and save the information
3. Take a photo of the grave or add one from your camera

     That's pretty much it. The process does take a few minutes, mostly since you add the names and dates at each grave.  However, I was not held up by waiting for a GPS signal like I am with the BillionGraves app. But I can't see walking a large cemetery and having to constantly type in names. A small church cemetery though? That would be very feasible. Also a nice feature on resting spot is the listing on the website. Once you've added the grave you can go to the website and add more information about the person. Photos, biographies, your relationship to the person, etc. There's also a map of the grave and you can even get directions to the GPS location. 

     I only had a chance to play with the app for a few minutes, but I liked it. It was user intuitive and has a great website. However, as I mentioned, having to input the vital information at each grave does take time. Also, saving that information can take a while too. I'm not sure how long, but it was at least 30 seconds. Maybe there's already a way around this? If not, it would be nice to be able to log the information into the phone and have it upload later to save time. 

     Next up: Lexington County Museum

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  Also in this series:

1. Tweeting My Trip
2. Visiting the OEDGS at the Tompkins Library
3. Visiting the South Carolina Department of Archives and History
4. [This Post]
5. Visiting the Lexington County Museum
6. Visiting the Franklin Memorial Library (Emanuel County, GA)