Shetland Family History Society is a small society that has embarked on the ambitious project to photograph and transcribe all of the gravestones in Shetland, the goal being to provide an online database linking the images with the monumental inscriptions.
The work has faced the inevitable difficulties, as Susan Cooper, Chair of the Shetland FHS explains: ‘The older Shetland tombstones were made from sandstone, and these have deteriorated greatly since we had transcribed them in the 1990s. The project to photograph them could not have come soon enough.
‘We wanted to give members around the world, the chance to see their family graves without traveling long distances,’ continues Sharon. ‘This project brought so many people from all over our islands together. Our society members got behind this project and worked together over all the data preparation.’ There are a total of 70 kirkyards (cemeteries) in Shetland and volunteers were recruited from every parish to do the local photographing. ‘Their personal knowledge and enthusiasm was encouraging to us who collated the materials they produced,’ added Joyce Henderson, Project Co-ordinator. ‘A small group then collated the photos and processed the pictures checking the transcriptions. We then passed the work onto the computer experts when many hours were needed to code and crossreference the data before it could be ready to go online.’