Cemetery Mapping

Hadlyville Cemetery

Study Area: Hadlyville Cemetery

Introduction:

For the first activity the job at hand is to try and recover all of the lost data from Hadlyville cemetery. In order for these issues to be fixed, field work will be a necessary part of this activity.

 What are the problems and challenges facing Hadlyville Cemetery?

• All the original records/maps have been lost
• Stones dating back to 1865 are difficult to read from age, broken or missing
• Burials with no identification markings

Why is the loss of original maps and records a particular challenge for this project?

• The loss of these maps and records will be a major setback, because now there isn’t any information that can help guide the project. It will also be difficult to retrieve some of the data belonging to certain grave sites because there will either be no headstone, or an aged headstone that will be hard to read.

How will GIS provide a solution to this problem?

• GIS is going to help through the use of GPS, the data collected by the GPS systems will help categorize the attributes of each headstone to its correct location, so than a legible map will be produced.

What makes this a GIS project, and not a simple map?

• Rather than just making a simple map, in this project there will also be data collection from the field and trying to identify where all of the missing grave sites are located.

What equipment are you going to use to gather the data needed to construct the GIS?

• The equipment that is going to be used in this project will mainly be handheld GPS devices, so than a grid system and multiple track points can be created so then the data will be properly collected.

What are the overall objectives of your proposal?

• Preserving community history by development of a detailed accurate map to define the burial lots of the cemetery
• Eliminate same burial plot to be sold by mistake to two people
• Identify as many stones and burials as possible and enter data

Methods:

What is the sampling technique you chose to use? Why?

• A grid system that will be labeled in a certain manner so than it will be easy to locate which grave site is being mentioned. First while holding a GPS device go around the entire cemetery to make a perimeter, and then snake in between each of the rows so than all of the grave sites will be accounted for on the map.

What is the accuracy of the equipment you are intending to use?

• The accuracy of the equipment that is being used should be extremely accurate because they are survey grade which means that they are accurate to within the centimeter.

How was the data entered/recorded? Why did you choose this data entry method?

• The data will be entered initially by hand through the use of notebooks, in these notebooks there will be a table where all of the data is categorized into different attributes so than each of the grave sites will be easily identified. This data entry method was used because it will be the most accurate for when categorizing the data for each grave site.

How will you transfer the data you gather into a GIS?

• The data that will be collected by hand in the field will then be later transferred onto an excel spreadsheet so than the data can be used in ArcMap. So basically creating an original set of data points to be used for map creation.

What drawbacks are there to the method you propose?

• The main issues that will be faced during this project will be being able to collect all of the attributes for all 120 sites located in the cemetery. Some of the gravestones will be unreadable and others may be missing entirely, so access to information may be limited for a good amount of these sites.

Conclusion:

How do your methods transfer to the overall objectives of your proposal?

• The methods that will be used for this project should complete all of the objectives that are listed, in the end each grave site will have all of the attribute information connected to its location in the cemetery.