The cemetery project is continually expanding and evolving. This year I added four cemeteries to my overall project. My mom and I had allotted a day just to go out and GPS cemeteries. The original cemetery on the schedule was the Robinson Creek Baptist Church Cemetery. This was the largest of the cemeteries that I did this year, consisting of 38 graves.
While on the way to the Robinson Creek Baptist Church Cemetery, we noticed that there was another cemetery on the same road by the name of Kirtley Cemetery No. 2. After I had finished collecting the points the Robinson Creek cemetery we stopped by the Kirtley Cemetery to take a look and see if it would be a possibility for the project. After visiting I realized that this would be a perfect cemetery to do. I took the Canon t4i and Garmin 72h GPS and got all the points for that cemetery. This was a very interesting cemetery because there were some Confederate soldiers buried there and there were also many unknown gravestones that were signified by a rock in the ground. I didn’t record all of the unknown graves just because the only information that I had was a rock in the ground.
After finishing the Kirtley Cemetery a friend of ours recommended that we take a look at the Hiestand-Chandler-Gilmore Cemetery. There were several graves located on a very small amount of land. There just happened to be a historian at the cemetery and he told us that the cemetery was actually moved from its original location because of road construction. This cemetery had a lot of really old stones. I was also able to share my project with the historian, which was cool.
The last new cemetery this year was the Cox Farms Cemetery. This was located on the farm of a family friend. There were only four graves, but I felt that this cemetery fit into the purpose of this project perfectly. Although the current owners of the property take good care of the cemetery, the future of the cemetery is up to whoever owns the land.
The last big update to the project this year was the integration of ArcGIS online. I had been told that I should be using an online interactive mapping service so I wouldn’t have static maps on my website. I went through and was able to get all of my maps converted to this online software, except Merrimac (Merrimac is the largest of the cemeteries, it is a work in progress). This has been a major part of my project this year. I am very happy that now the people who are using these maps will be able to interact with them and be able to see each grave from the perspective they choose.
While on the way to the Robinson Creek Baptist Church Cemetery, we noticed that there was another cemetery on the same road by the name of Kirtley Cemetery No. 2. After I had finished collecting the points the Robinson Creek cemetery we stopped by the Kirtley Cemetery to take a look and see if it would be a possibility for the project. After visiting I realized that this would be a perfect cemetery to do. I took the Canon t4i and Garmin 72h GPS and got all the points for that cemetery. This was a very interesting cemetery because there were some Confederate soldiers buried there and there were also many unknown gravestones that were signified by a rock in the ground. I didn’t record all of the unknown graves just because the only information that I had was a rock in the ground.
After finishing the Kirtley Cemetery a friend of ours recommended that we take a look at the Hiestand-Chandler-Gilmore Cemetery. There were several graves located on a very small amount of land. There just happened to be a historian at the cemetery and he told us that the cemetery was actually moved from its original location because of road construction. This cemetery had a lot of really old stones. I was also able to share my project with the historian, which was cool.
The last new cemetery this year was the Cox Farms Cemetery. This was located on the farm of a family friend. There were only four graves, but I felt that this cemetery fit into the purpose of this project perfectly. Although the current owners of the property take good care of the cemetery, the future of the cemetery is up to whoever owns the land.
The last big update to the project this year was the integration of ArcGIS online. I had been told that I should be using an online interactive mapping service so I wouldn’t have static maps on my website. I went through and was able to get all of my maps converted to this online software, except Merrimac (Merrimac is the largest of the cemeteries, it is a work in progress). This has been a major part of my project this year. I am very happy that now the people who are using these maps will be able to interact with them and be able to see each grave from the perspective they choose.