BROOKINGS – People all over the world have a growing interest in discovering their origins, learning their family stories, and finding evidence of the lives of their ancestors.

Gravesites are an important and substantial source of information, but the time and cost of travel can make obtaining it difficult.

Technology is helping bridge that gap, and so is a Brookings teenager.

Patrick White, a 16-year-old sophomore at Brookings High School, was looking for an Eagle Scout project that would benefit many people when he decided to photograph tombstones at a local cemetery and make the results available to anyone anywhere who had family in the Brookings area.

White had almost completed the Boy Scout Merit Badge on Genealogy and had a personal interest in his own family history.

Several online sites are dedicated to photographing tombstones and entering the stones’ information into searchable online databases, depending on volunteers to photograph and transcribe the engravings.

Since Greenwood Cemetery had not been photographed and added to billiongraves.com, White chose that for his Eagle project.

“My project will help those trying to find their relatives so they don’t have to travel long distances,” he said. “This will make it so they can do family history faster.”

Last Oct. 15, White and 14 volunteers spent an average of four hours each photographing the tombstones and uploading the images.

“I was surprised to find, in most every row of gravestones that I was assigned to photograph, there were one or more markers for those who had served in our armed forces,” Brookings resident Liz Gorham said. “It saddened me to see so many, but I was also proud of their sacrifice in our behalf.”

After completing about 70 percent of the photography, photographers and other volunteers over the next few weeks viewed the engravings and entered the information online into the database. Now people worldwide can search names of their deceased relatives from this area and both read the recorded information and see the images.

Pat Walker, a volunteer from Moody County who transcribed many of the engravings, noticed that one stone was for an infant who appeared to be related to her relatives buried at Mt. Auburn Cemetery but who did not exist in any of the family records. She then did some sleuthing in Census records and found reference to the child.

“Had I not done the transcribing, it may have been quite a while before I ever discovered this small infant that needed to be documented in this family,” Walker said.

White will give a poster presentation of his Eagle project at an open house celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Brookings Family History Center, from 1-4 p.m. Saturday, April 22, at 200 22nd Ave. (northeast doors), the meeting house for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

With 30 percent of the cemetery still needing to be photographed, White said he would be grateful for volunteer help from the community. People can sign up at his poster station at the Family History Center open house, or they can contact him by phone, 692-8930, or email at patrickmacwhite@gmail.com.

At the open house, visitors can also receive free personal assistance in their own family history pursuits. Beginning through advanced help will be available, as well as basics of FamilySearch online. If they would like to make digital scans of a few of their old photos or convert data from 3.5 PAF discs to an online format, they can bring their photos or discs and a flash drive. Video presentations from 2015 and 2016 Rootstech, the world’s largest genealogy tech conference, will be available to watch on demand.

Photographs of millions of other birth, marriage and death records from the world are waiting to be indexed into the free FamilySearch.org database. Visitors to the open house can learn how to volunteer for that endeavor as well, if they are interested.

White plans to finish his Eagle project in the next few months.

“I’m thankful for them,” he said of his volunteers. “It speeds up the process a lot.”

He hopes their efforts “will help other people get further in their family history,” connecting families across miles and generations.