Cemetery website unveiled
Staff photo/Kathy McCarty
FOUR YEARS IN THE MAKING — A website using GIS and GPS technology was created by UMPI faculty and students, which gives the public access to Fairmount Cemetery records, including pictures of markers and detailed information on those interred at the Presque Isle site, located on the Houlton Road. Here, Dr. Chunzeng Wang, project coordinator and UMPI associate professor of earth and environmental science, explains the project. For more information, visit www.fairmountcemeterypresqueisle.com.
PRESQUE ISLE — A collaborative effort between Fairmount Cemetery officials, the Presque Isle Historical Society, students and staff of the GIS laboratory at the University of Maine at Presque Isle will make locating a loved one’s last resting place much easier — whether you plan to visit the cemetery in person or tour the site from thousands of miles away — thanks to a new website.
Officials with UMPI hosted the unveiling in February at the Campus Center, celebrating more than three years of work to create an interactive and searchable web-based map of the cemetery, located on the Houlton Road.
Staff photo/Kathy McCarty
LOCAL GENEALOGIST Dick Kimball discusses the benefits of a recently-unveiled website, that allows users to view records of Fairmount Cemetery in Presque Isle. 
This first-of-its-kind project in Maine was conducted by UMPI’s GIS laboratory and a team of UMPI researchers working in partnership with the Fairmount Cemetery Association and the Presque Isle Historical Society. The new website, www.fairmountcemeterypresqueisle.com, serves as an important resource for historians, researchers and those conducting family genealogy, and also preserves the historical data that is found at the cemetery for future generations. The Fairmount Cemetery, established in the 19th century, represents one of the oldest and largest graveyards in northern Maine.
“When we started, we had little to use as a model, but several of us had a clear idea of what we’d like the site to look like and to do,” said UMPI Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs Michael Sonntag. “I am very proud to say the research team has produced a product that exceeds what I had in mind.”
Sonntag said everyone, especially members of the FCA, is very happy with the final product, noting the project not only was a collaborative effort between various organizations but would also serve to promote tourism in the region.
“And to know we did this as a partnership with several local organizations, involved students extensively throughout the project, and that it will benefit tourism and local history, tells me we really got it right with this project. As a regional institution, UMPI’s mission is to serve central and northern Maine, and projects like this exemplify such service to mission.”
Staff photo/Kathy McCarty
This project serves as the very first mapping of a cemetery in northern Maine and the first large-scale, comprehensive cemetery mapping project using GIS and GPS technology in the state. GIS (geographic information systems) is an information system that captures, stores, analyzes and displays geographic information. GPS, which stands for global positioning system, is a satellite-based navigation system that can be used to calculate a precise location anywhere in the world.
Joining Sonntag for the unveiling were Dr. Chunzeng Wang, project coordinator and UMPI associate professor of earth and environmental science, and Ed Hews, representing the FCA board of directors.
Wang provided a tour of the new website, explaining how it worked. Visitors can view the map, zoom in to select individual cemetery plots located on the map or use a drop-down menu to select a plot by name. Clicking on a plot reveals detailed information about each burial place, as well as a photograph of the gravestone.
“This large-scale GIS and web-GIS project has had a number of faculty and students involved,” Wang said. “It is a wonderful learning process for both faculty and students. It provides valuable opportunity for our students to work on a real-world application project. The project also helps the university to be more tied to the communities from academic and community-service perspectives.”
Work on the project began back in 2008, when Sonntag, Wang, Lynn Eldershaw and Kim Sebold garnered an MEIF (Maine Economic Improvement Fund) Small Campus Initiative Fund grant. Ultimately, the group received about $23,000 to complete the project, titled “Developing a Cemetery GIS Database for Historic, Cultural and Social Research in Aroostook County.”
During the first year of the project, students Megan Pryor, Sherry Cole, Ashlee Pryor, Robert Baldwin and John Donley worked as research assistants, helping to map and collect cemetery data, including lot and plot numbers, names of the interred, birth dates, death dates, gender, grave headstone/marker material, and mentions of military and civilian service — for more than 2,200 lots and 10,000 plots. Each of these lots and plots was mapped with GPS/GIS technology.
The second and third years of work on the project involved entering all of the collected data into a comprehensive and searchable GIS database management system. Under the supervision of Dr. JoAnne Wallingford, then associate professor of management information systems, and Wang, student Brittany Hickey developed an Access database management system for data entry, students Letian Zheng, Nolan Gagnon and Zicong Zhou entered burial data into the system, and student Lenka Rambouskova designed the website from scratch.
The information made available by cemetery mapping can now serve as a resource for conservation, interment planning, maintenance of grave markers and monuments, and management of facilities, grounds and records. The completed GIS database also provides important and easily searchable data for researchers in the fields of history, sociology, anthropology and genealogy. For example, researchers will be able to view burial patterns, such as age and lifespan, gender and religion. Some data patterns may provide clues to historic and social events.
Wang also noted the FCA will no longer have to worry about losing paper records to fire, as has happened in the past, since data is now electronically stored and backed up.
With the site complete, project officials area hopeful the community will find many more ways to utilize this information. According to Wang, data from a Fort Fairfield cemetery may soon be available, using the same technology. Wang said members of that community’s historical society will be working with Sebold and her students on a similar project.
“We’ve kept records by hand for years. It’s a pleasure to now be able to say the records are secure,” said Hews.
“We hope this grows,” said Sonntag, noting the historic significance of the project could be applied anywhere in the world.
