Volunteers Profile: Graham Newby

This is a profile of Graham Newby, a Gravestone Photographic Resource volunteer.

A bit about Graham Newby I have been working for the British Library (Northern Site at Boston Spa nr Wetherby) now for well over 30 years. I have worked in various departments within the British Library over the years. My current job is Electronic Table of Contents (ETOC) Production Manager. My department creates electronic table of contents from around 20,000 journal titles held by the British Library. The data is loaded onto various databases and journal articles can then be searched for. I was born and spent most of my childhood in Leeds. I currently live in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, where I have lived now for around 20+ years with my wife Julie. We have one daughter, Jennifer (Jen) who has just recently taken up the post of Deputy Editor at the magazine Family History Monthly. Current hobbies include genealogical research, gardening, cycling, and occasionally a bit of DIY. In my earlier years I was involved in the Sealed Knot Society, a Civil War re-enactment society doing various battle re-enactments and displays all over the UK as both a pikeman and musketeer.

Graham Newby

Why did you become a volunteer?

Having been doing my own family history for a number of years now, like many others, I came across Charles’ website just by chance. I found that he had photographed and indexed some of my ancestors gravestones in Suffolk. I requested the photographs which were supplied extremely quickly. I agree with Charles’ ethos of free access to information and thought I would like to help Charles in his aim of trying to photograph gravestones around the country.

I’m also involved in transcribing parish registers for the FreeREG project which aims to give free internet access to parish register information. I also find it quite relaxing and a good way of de-stressing when you’ve been working all week, although occasionally you find yourself doubled over in a bed of nettles trying to get that ‘best’ shot photograph. Some of the churchyards I visit are really peaceful and beautiful places to walk through so I would encourage anyone to come and join the rest of us in trying to conserve digitally a bit of our heritage and get some relaxing and stress free exercise in the process.

How long have you been a volunteer?

I started getting involved as a volunteer in 2007.

What type of volunteer are you?

I suppose still having a full time job I would be classed as a part-time volunteer. When I have a spare day or so, and the weather is reasonable, I try and go out and photograph a couple of churchyards. I have initially concentrated on doing the churches within my local area but have now started to gradually move outwards to more distant areas.

How do you choose which cemetery to photograph?

I have mainly chosen cemeteries within my local area, but I have also tried to choose churches where I have also input the parish register onto the FreeReg website. This means you can freely search for descendents on the FreeREG database and also check out on the Gravestone Photographic Resource website if there is an existing gravestone that has been photographed. An example of one these is the churchyard at Collingham, Yorkshire.

How much time do you spend volunteering for the Gravestone Photographic Resource?

Approximately a couple of days a month, depending on the weather, photographing the cemetery’s and probably a couple more days in terms of time indexing them.

Would you recommend volunteering?

I would definitely recommend volunteering for the project as it gets you out into the fresh air, you get a bit of exercise in the process and it actually de-stresses you particularly if you have quite a stressful occupation. You are also contributing to the overall aim of making useful and genealogically important information freely accessible to others.