Here it is. The big day. The chance to present my project in front of my friends, family, and community members. I’m very excited about this and I hope you all are too.
Please join us on Wednesday, June 15th, 2016 at 12:00pm. The presentation will be held at the Dorchester County Historical Society at 1003 Greenway Drive, in Cambridge, Maryland, 21613.
I look forward to seeing you there!
Well it is that time of year. It is almost time to start collecting new sites and I look forward to new and interesting locations and photos to be able to share with you. The most exciting thing I have to share right now is that we have been invited to speak at the Dorchester County Historical Society and I finally have a date for that to share with you.
The presentation will be held on June 15th, 2016 at 12:00pm (bring your lunch!). It will be held at the Dorchester Historical Society Building at 1003 Greenway Drive, Cambridge, Maryland, 21613.
I would like to extend an invitation to everyone who has been reading along and sending in locations, and supporting us throughout this project. I couldn’t have done this without all of the help from tips coming in through email and spotters keeping lists of sites they see while driving, and the guides for taking me to some of the more remote parts of the county. I would love to see you all there and be able to thank you in person.
Remember to keep those tips coming in! There are just some graves that we could never find without your help!
Anyone going out now working on their own research remember, Spring has Sprung. Make sure you use bug repellent, I’ve already heard reports of ticks, chiggers, and mosquitoes. I have also seen some snakes while I was out, so be safe and make sure you keep an eye on your surroundings.
And Happy Easter Weekend to everyone. I just wanted to bring everyone up to date on what’s going on! We had a fantastic time at the TUgis Conference. The presentation went beautifully and was very well received. There was a lively Q&A and discussion afterwards and many agencies, organizations, and individuals were interested in helping out or volunteering in some way. I hope to be able to reach out to people soon with some volunteering ideas. Also the Dorchester Graves Webmap won the award for Best Student WebApp, so that is very exciting (thank you everyone who voted for us!).
I’d like to thank everyone who came to the TUgis presentation or stopped by the WebApp Hall to visit and talk. It was exciting to get to meet some of the blog readers and followers in person. Thank you all for the kind words and support!
Also we have been invited to speak at the Dorchester County Historical Society and give a presentation on our project and its findings. It will be mostly geared towards individuals who are doing historical or genealogical research with a little section regarding the science and technology of data collection, but anyone interested in the project is more than welcome to attend. There will be more information to follow on that once we have the details nailed down.
The Salisbury University Geography Department has been kind enough to let me use the GPS device this spring even though I am no longer a student, so I hope to start collecting points again next month. If you know of a gravesite that is not currently represented on the map (click here to go to map) please email us so we can put your site on the list of places to visit.
Additionally I have been adding the rest of the photo’s to the website. The link for every sites name, alphabetically up to letter “H”, should be in good working order. If you find a link between A-H that is broken, or just leads back to the map instead of to the correct photo page, please email me and let me know so I can fix it. I am slowly but surely plugging away at this so thank you for your patience.
I believe that is all the news I have for now. I know I haven’t been posting as frequently as usual but until collection resumes there just isn’t as much excitement to talk about. I promise once I start fieldwork again there will be more photos and more to read about. But until then please enjoy this photo of the full moon from Wednesday night that I took through my telescope!
I am thrilled to announce that the Dorchester Graves Project was selected to be presented at the TUgis Conference in March. TUgis is Maryland’s Geospatial Conference and is held annually at Towson University. Those who aren’t familiar can learn more here. The conference highlights GIS Projects and Initiatives from around the State and it is a great honor to be selected to present.
Also I would like to let everyone know that I have been picking away at posting photos, and all pages, alphabetically, up to the letter “G” are up to date. I am still looking for new sites to map when we start collecting again at the end of March so keep the tips coming.
A Huge Thank You to everyone who has helped out so far!!! Your support has taken us from the fields and marshes of Dorchester County, to the classrooms of Salisbury University, to the event halls of a major state Conference! And none of it would have been possible without you!
The question I get from people most often when talking about this project is “Why?”. Apparently graveyards are not something people think about often. We go to a funeral, bury a loved one, and then move on with our lives, rarely thinking about that small stone in the ground. If you are lucky this cycle doesn’t happen often, If you are like me, it happens far more frequently than you would wish.
The answer is simple. Because. Because we are losing these sites to time and tide. Because some have no one to take care of them, because some are already past all hope of help. Because this is our heritage, our history. Because there are so many stories out there to be told. Because these sites, no matter how small, or how old deserve the same respect and dignity of any of the large, for profit, cemeteries. Because I don’t believe anyone even knows where they are all anymore. And finally, Because if we don’t do it, who will?
Some are easy to find. They can be right in someones front yard.
Some take more time and effort to find and then get to…
When strangers happen upon us at a burial site we get some of the strangest looks; surprise, disgust, suspicion… Cars slow down and creep by, I guess wondering why there are a handful of people in the cemetery taking pictures and holding strange electronics. After all nothing says mischief like a pair of rainbow polka dot rain boots…
However we have been fortunate in our travels that there are many more people fascinated by what we are doing than repulsed by it. I was able to speak with a man who was volunteering his time to help rebuild one of the more historic churches in the county down on Taylor’s Island. In addition to a quick history of that church, he was also able to guide me to another grave site nearby and gave me a brief history of that one as well.
Sometimes curious neighbors come out and speak to me absolutely thrilled that their site will be featured in the project. I had a lovely conversation with a church elder who gave me a brief history of the church, some great facts about the neighboring historical buildings, and discussed with me the sad situation that since the church has recently been renamed, the church elders feel they have lost some of their identity. I wish I had the capability to record some of these conversations, or at least had an anthropologist on my team to know what to do with such cultural knowledge.
Always looking for volunteers. Email us at dorchestergraves@gmail.com
After spending a few days in the field last week I have decided that I am definitely going to mark the easiest locations first. It has been nearly 90 degrees out lately and I have been warned about the dangers of the indigenous wildlife. Ticks. I have been advised to wait until the fall unless I would like to become part of the food chain. So, that being said the posts and photos for the next month or two will be churchyards, cemeteries, and other maintained plots.
Pictured: Non-threatening indigenous wildlife.
I’m sure many of you are wondering why I am listing and photographing churchyards that are still active and in good condition. The answer very simply is that if I’m going to tackle such an undertaking, that I want to make sure that EVERY burial site in the county is accounted for. For future records.
These churches and churchyards may still be in use and still accepting new… residents, but that may not always be the case. There are several locations around the county where a church once stood but burned down, was lost to storms, or was otherwise destroyed and never rebuilt. The grave sites however are still located on these properties.
The graveyards that are part of a still active church are some of the luckiest in the county as they are well maintained and cared for. The ones where the church is no longer standing could stand some extra attention. When photographing one location there was quite a bit of garbage around the property and the woodlands were encroaching and would benefit from a trim.
If I had the supplies I would have attempted some of the clean-up myself the day I visited, but sadly I was unprepared. My next step is locating the caretakers of these properties as I go along and perhaps helping them to organize volunteers to clean up the graveyards. If you are, or you know who the responsible parties are, please email us at dorchestergraves@gmail.com and perhaps we can work out some volunteer cleanup activities.
This site is dedicated to all the lost souls of Dorchester County, Maryland. My family has been living here for well over 300 years and sadly finding their final resting places has been more of a challenge than I originally thought. In addition to the numerous unmarked family plots scattered across the county, there are also many locations that are now lost to time and tide.
Erosion has wiped away many of the smaller plots resting on creeks, branches, or river banks. Those on many of the smaller islands, the most famous of these is the now sunken Holland Island, are also slowly being washed away over the years. It is my goal to locate as many of these plots as possible and to map them, so that even if we gradually lose the fight with the Bay, we will at least be able to see where these souls were once laid to rest.
Dorchester Graves 