How to Submit a Gravestone Photo to Illinois Gravestone Photo Project

You can submit a gravestone photo through the "Submit a Photo" link on illinoisgravestones.org. The site is a volunteer-run archive that captures digital images of gravestones in Illinois cemeteries, and every submission goes through an approval step before it appears publicly. If you have photographed a headstone, tombstone, or memorial marker in Illinois and want it preserved for genealogy researchers, the process is straightforward — but there are a few conditions worth knowing before you start.

Before You Submit

The project's stated mission is to archive gravestone images before inscriptions become unreadable as decades pass. That mission shapes what makes a useful submission:

• The stone should be in Illinois. This is the Illinois Gravestone Photo Project; other states have their own independently managed GPP sites.
• The photo should show the inscription clearly. The point is to preserve what the stone says, so a legible image matters more than an artistic one.
• You should be willing to have it reviewed. Submissions are not published instantly — they enter an approval queue.

The site's own statistics show 105,145 approved photos and 0 pending at the time of the last update (9/23/2026), which tells you the queue is actively cleared rather than left to pile up.

Step-by-Step: Submitting a Photo

1. Go to the submission entry point

On the homepage, the navigation includes Home, Search Gravestones, Submit a Photo, Cemeteries, Surnames, Resources. The "Submit a Photo" link is the entry point for contributions. The homepage also carries a direct call to action: "Help Preserve History — Click here to submit a photo."

2. Provide the photo and its identifying details

To be useful in a searchable archive, a photo needs to be tied to a person and a place. Expect to supply the name on the stone and the cemetery location, since the site's search works "by name or location" and its browse options are organized by Cemeteries and Surnames. Matching your submission to an existing cemetery and surname structure is what makes it findable later.

3. Submit and wait for approval

After you submit, the photo is reviewed. Only approved photos are counted and displayed — the site tracks "Approved" and "Pending" separately, and the public total reflects approved images only. So a newly submitted photo will not appear in search results immediately.

4. Verify it went live

Once approved, your photo should be findable through the same search other researchers use — by the name on the stone or by the cemetery. If you want to confirm, search for the surname or cemetery and check whether your image appears.

What to Check If Your Submission Doesn't Show Up

The Resources section lists How Can I Volunteer? and Frequently Asked Questions, plus a "View All Resources" link. These are the site's own guidance pages and are the right place to check formatting or coverage expectations before submitting a large batch.

Volunteering vs. One-Off Submissions

Submitting a single photo and volunteering are related but different. The project states it is "currently seeking volunteers to help take and upload photos for many counties," and points interested people to its FAQ and volunteer information articles. If you live near or travel through a county with thin coverage, volunteering to photograph a whole cemetery fills more gaps than a one-off upload.

Coverage is uneven across the state. The top counties by approved photos all-time are:

If your photos are from a county far down this list — or not on it — your contribution adds proportionally more to the archive.

Why It Matters

Gravestone inscriptions fade, chip, and become unreadable over time. Archiving a clear digital image now means a researcher decades from now can still read a name, a date, or an epitaph that the physical stone may no longer show. That is the whole premise of the project, and it is why the approval step exists: the archive is meant to be a reliable record, not an unfiltered photo dump.

For questions about how the project operates, its Frequently Asked Questions and How Can I Volunteer? pages under Resources are the authoritative source. The site also provides Donate, Contact Us, Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and Site Map links in its footer if you need to reach the operators directly.