Mapping Graveyards
Speaking of ghosts, writing about the missing brass rubbing a few weeks ago led me to this article about mapping out graveyards. Like Google Maps for graves.
Because I like visiting graves when we travel. Even though I know the person isn’t actually associated with that place. Isn’t it funny? To visit Ibsen, you go to a graveyard in Oslo. Wouldn’t it make sense to go to a place that was meaningful for Ibsen if you want to pay your respects and feel close to the playwright?
But on every trip, I end up gravitating toward graveyards.
The living create new memories by visiting the place where people are buried. And it’s generally easy to find the resting place of famous people. It’s harder to determine if the person has personal significance, but you’re not close enough to know where they’re buried.
So I think this would be extremely helpful.
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The US has the Find A Grave database that is populated by family members and, I think, third party graveyard enthusiasts. My SIL added my husband, but I think I had heard of it previously.
I have a blogging friend who photographs gravestones and graves for the Find A Grave group (I think that’s the one). I visited one of the cemeteries in Paris years ago. And just last week we walked through an old cemetery because they are always interesting. And if possible, I want to visit the grave of a great-uncle who died in Egypt in WWII, though I can see his grave online (the Commonwealth War Graves Commission has done a huge job of documenting all the overseas graves). I like the idea too that one day in the future, someone might walk past a stone or a plaque for me, read my name and my dates, and wonder about who I was.
Find a Grave has been a VERY helpful tool in ancestor hunting! albeit it doesn’t tell you exactly where a grave plot is in a cemetery. There’s another site called One Billion Graves that actually uses GPS to pinpoint exactly where each plot is. I don’t think it’s quite as well known or used, though.
Some cemeteries do provide online indexes and maps that will show you approximately where a particular grave is located. A Google Streetview type of app, like the one in the article, would be very helpful too.
I think that would be amazing! I love visiting graveyards, although most of ours that we visit are local or in New England since we haven’t done a ton of international travel. There’s an amazing amount of history and beauty in a cemetery. We have Mt Hope right here, which is basically a park as well as a functioning cemetery, but has Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass buried within. And whole sections that tell incredible stories.