If you told me a decade ago that I’d become an expert in mapping cemeteries, I would’ve laughed and been very confused about the dramatic turn my professional life must’ve taken at some point.
I’m an environmental scientist who specializes in geospatial technology, which involves analyzing the Earth and how geography plays a role in human societies. I use these tools in my work to map conservation planning, food deserts, trail systems and green space accessibility.
For the past 20 years I’ve been overseeing Miami University’s Geospatial Analysis Center, building relationships with local cities, counties and companies. I started pairing my classes with outside partners to do mapping and analysis work. Some of the work my students most enjoyed was mapping small local cemeteries in and around southwest Ohio. The projects allowed them to gain experience with collecting data in the field and provided a human connection to the data.
The author and students from her advanced GIS course investigate paper maps of the cemetery.
Miami University Communications, CC BY-ND
Then in 2020, the local cemetery association of Oxford, Ohio – which owned and operated the area’s largest cemetery, spanning over 40 acres – fell upon financial troubles and dissolved. This meant the city was now solely and fully responsible for the management and maintenance of this historic and active cemetery. And it was provided only old paper maps and stacks of interment cards that listed names, dates and funeral homes. The assistant city manager reached out to see whether there was a way we could help with mapping the cemetery and transitioning from all-paper to digital resources.
Thus began a yearlong adventure in harnessing the efforts of over 50 college students to figure out how to map a cemetery with over 6,000 headstones and virtually no records. What I didn’t anticipate was the newfound connections students would develop to the college town they call home.
Old school cemetery mapping
Traditional mapping methods would have us divide and conquer: We’d go out to the cemetery with multiple GPS units and mark a point on each headstone. While at the cemetery, we’d also take a photo of the headstone and write down its information – such as name and dates of birth and death – in a notebook.
Back in the office, we’d then combine the data from all our GPS units with the handwritten notes and photos. The final dataset would include the location of the headstone, all information on the headstone and a reference link to a photo.
This process took roughly 10 to 15 minutes per headstone overall. So a small cemetery of roughly 300 headstones would require nearly 60 hours of work to successfully map.
Miami University has its own section among the thousands of headstones in Oxford Cemetery.
Robbyn Abbitt, CC BY-ND
In the past five to 10 years, however, geospatial…
