Simple steps to survey an historic graveyard

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3 simple steps to survey an historic graveyard

When we run our workshops we cover a lot of ground and 'learn by doing'. The average training session lasts two days and our training manual is twenty pages long - but most people learn the system without even using the manual. People sometimes ask us to condense the system further and this is a quick attempt to do so.

In the training workshops we cover 3 Simple Steps to Surveying an Historic Graveyard/Cemetery and the system has been used to publish everything from small rural graveyards to very large urban cemeteries.

The system feeds directly into our own site www.historicgraves.com but it works equally well for building a dataset to upload to any digital database.

The simple steps are 

  1. Number & Photo (and always stick the numbers onto the memorials - masking tape and a marker will suffice)
  2. Fill out the record sheet
  3. Sketch plan & complete the survey folder (register sheet, sketch plan, record sheets)

Other key points are

  1. Always work in teams; pairs are best
  2. Do single survey photos first – extra photos can be added once the survey photos are complete & uploaded.
  3. Record the stories & sounds of the graveyard in audio and video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwO-MESRaww )
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