Where Technology Meets Tombstone
Everybody loves a genealogy challenge, but when Nampa, Idaho city employees started spending the greater part of their days locating gravesites for call-in family historians, city officials knew something had to be done. Rather than turn away long-distance calls for help, city officials decided on something better—a way to make graves and gravesites accessible to anyone, anywhere, thanks to digital photographs, GPS technology, and a searchable database on the Internet.
Now family historians with kin buried in Nampa can search by first name, middle name, last name, birth date, death date, interment date, or the section, lot, or space on which the gravestone is located. Each search result includes a photograph of the gravestone, an aerial view of the gravestone that pinpoints its location in the cemetery, and a map of the cemetery.
“If there was something on the back of the headstone, those pictures were also included. It’s almost like a family group sheet so we tried to be as thorough as possible,” said Rod Collins, Nampa’s GIS Manager.
The actual project took about six months to complete. Gravestones were photographed for several months starting in June 2006, although the idea was tossed around for about a year beforehand. And in addition to collecting over 12,000 photos, city employees used GPS to record the latitude and longitude of each grave marker. The data was then loaded into a GPS-Photo Link software program from GeoSpatial Experts to create a digital map of the cemetery.
“What’s really exciting for the city is that it not only has taken the pressure off the clerk’s office … but it creates something that’s very friendly for the public that really benefits everyone,” said Sharla Arledge, Nampa’s Public Information Officer.
Nampa’s cemetery is not the first to post gravestones on the Internet, but it is one of the first to use GPS technology to map the actual location of each headstone. Other online cemetery sites, including Ancestral Findings and Find a Grave, spotlight only user-contributed photographs.
Email This Post
I love this idea. I have used FindAGrave.com in the past and had some success. It is so helpful to find gravestones with birth and death dates and family information.
Way to go, Nampa! May more cities follow in your footsteps.
This is great! I hope other cities will follow Nampa’s example.
One summer I spent two weeks photographing ancestors’ graves in Milwaukee and thought I had found all of them. But the next year when the Milwaukee Archdiocese published its burial records online, I rejoiced to find additional ancestors I’d missed during my previous excursion.
This is great, and as they say, a benefit for all. I wish other cemeteries took this approach.