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Evergreen
Virtual Cemetery - Preliminary Version Links to each are below - Unless you are familiar with Internet mapping applications, however, you may wish to read through this introduction and brief tutorial below before entering the interactive map section. Please keep in mind that this is very
much a work in progress, and I welcome any comments or suggestions you
have! (ggvogel@gmail.com)
This information is made available on-line by the Fayetteville Evergreen Cemetery Association, with the aid of John Wilson at the University of Arkansas' Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies (CAST), and a grant form the Arkansas Humanities Council. This web page created and maintained by Evergreen Cemetery board member Gregory Vogel (e-mail ggvogel@gmail.com). Please note that the database and map are so far incomplete - we are still mapping and recording features, and entering them into this database. Please let me know if you would like to help out! This page contains the following:
The purpose of this project is to make available to a wide public as much information as possible concerning Evergreen Cemetery, including a full database of all permanent features and interments. Most of the information was gathered by students and volunteers in the Evergreen Cemetery Recording Project. This information includes a database of all permanent features of the cemetery, including gravestones, footstones, family markers, plot walls and corner markers, benches, permanent flower vases, and unmarked stones. Along with the descriptions, digital photos of most features will soon be available as well. Check this page for updates. The information will eventually be available
in three formats:
The GIS-derived map and database are interfaced here using MapViewSVG (home page here), which is a software package for publishing GIS data on-line in a searchable, interactive format. Be advised that IT DOES NOT WORK WITH ALL INTERNET BROWSERS - you need Microsoft Internet Explorer, current versions of Mozilla Firefox of Netscape Browser, or an Adobe SVG plug-in to effectively operate the MapViewSVG document. MapViewSVG works by first downloading a great deal of the information to your computer, so it is 'pre-loaded' and ready to go. This has an advantage over server-side applications because the searches and actions you take are processed only by your computer and will not be slowed by your Internet connection. The disadvantage is that it may take a while for the application to fully launch, particularly if you have dial-up Internet access. I am unsure how quickly or slowly it will work with different connections and different Internet browsing platforms - please let me know your experience with the program! If you click on the map above to go to enter the map and database page and encounter problems, you may try installing the latest version of your Internet browser, downloading the Adobe SVG plug-in, or switching to a different browser. The MapViewSVG software is designed to be as user-friendly as possible, but interactive web-based mapping applications are still relatively new. If you are unfamiliar with web-mapping applications, it may appear somewhat over-complex and unwieldy at first, but please have patience! I believe this will prove to be a powerful research tool for genealogists, historians, archaeologists, or anyone with an interest in this cemetery. If you have persistent problems or wish further assistance with the site, please feel free to contact me: ggvogel@gmail.com, and I will try to help you any way I can.
The Basic Interface and Simple Searching If your browser supports scalable vector graphics (SVG), when you click on the map link above your screen should look something like this:
The aerial photograph is a background for the main working map. The smaller, gray map in the upper-left hand corner of the screen is a location map - if the main map is zoomed in to show finer detail, the location map shows you where that view is in relation to the cemetery as a whole. The menu below the location map allows you to turn individual map layers on or off. Notice that the boxes to the left of the "Last Name" and "Last Name with Dates" layers do not have checks in them, so these layers are not visible. To turn layers on or off simply click on the boxes. Note that the names and dates in the first two layers do not scale with the rest of the graphics (I am working to fix this), so they are unreadable or at least very crowded unless significantly zoom in to the main map. The cemetery features (gravestones, etc.) are much easier to see if the aerial photograph layer is turned off. Note that most cemetery features (gravestones, family markers, etc.) are included in the same layer, but are coded with different colors on the map. Because most features are relatively small compared to the cemetery as a whole, he color-coding will probably not be visible on your monitor unless the aerial photograph is turned off and the main map is zoomed in to show sufficient detail. To the right of the main map is a toolbar with basic map tools, with symbols common to many other applications. The "+" and "-" signs are for zooming in and out, the hand is for panning, and the globe will return you to the full extent of the map. The "i" symbol stands for "information". Zoom in to an area of the map with features and click on this icon. Holding your cursor over the feature will show the last name of the individual named on the monument (note that if there are multiple individuals named on a single monument, only one name will show up). Clicking on the feature will bring up a window with all of the information recorded for that monument like this:
The database fields are explained in
more detail here (coming soon). In a nutshell, this is what the fields
mean:
Below the "information" icon is a printer button. If your computer is connected to a printer, this button should print the map just as it appears on the screen (I've been having problems with this myself - let me know if you have better luck). The final button on this toolbar is a "question mark" help button - click this for a few basic instructions in using the map viewer. Just below the location map there is a drop-down menu labeled "Zoom to..." This is a quick-find feature, keyed to the last name of individuals listed on the gravestones. Note that it is keyed to the first individual listed only - many of the gravestones have multiple individuals listed, some of whom may have a different last name than that of the first person listed. To use this feature, simply click on the arrow and highlight the name you wish. The main map will automatically zoom to the selected feature or features. All features with the selected last name will be highlighted in red, and the main map will zoom in as far as possible to these features. For example, selecting "Logan" looks like this:
There are four gravestones (on the left) and one family monument (on the right), highlighted in red. To get detailed information about each feature, select the "i" icon on the right and click on the feature. You can see where these features are within the cemetery by the highlighted box in the location map. To see adjacent features, use the "zoom out" tool.
The full power of this interface are realized through a search of the database linked to the map. In the layers toolbar (to the left of the main map), notice that "Cemetery Features" has three boxes. The left box simply turns this layer on and off in the main map, and the other two connect you to the full database. The middle box brings up the entire database for viewing - it is fairly large (and getting larger as more features are recorded and added). As you scroll your pointer over an entry, it is highlighted red, and the corresponding feature on the main map is highlighted red also. If the map is zoomed out to the full extent, you may not be able to see the red highlighting, though. If you hold down your "control" key as you highlight different entries, the map will automatically zoom to each highlighted feature. Notice the boxes at the top of each column:
Click on these to sort the database by the selected column in ascending or descending order. The red button calls up a search interface for the database, structured something like a calculator:
The calculator helps you build a query - which means it helps you search for particular features within the database. If you want to find all of the stones for individuals who died prior to 1900, for example, scroll down in the "fields" box to [death_year1] and click it - this field is now shown in the "Query expression" box, and the values for death_year1 are shown in the "values" box to the right. Next click on the operator "<", and it will appear in the Query expression box, and click on 1900 from the values field (or just type it in to the Query expression box). The query should now read: "[death_year1] < 1900" Clicking on the "select" button at the bottom will now select all of these features and call them up in a new database window. Push the "clear selection" button to clear one query and begin another. Clicking on the "select and zoom" button results in the map zooming in to show the feature or features selected by the query. Each feature fitting the query is highlighted in red. Note that several query parameters can be combined, so that if you were interested in all of the cemetery features prior to 1900 that contained flower motifs and were taller than 50 cm, you could do this with the query, "[death_year1" < 1900 and [height_cm] > 50 and [motifs] = "flower"". So far, there is only one record in the database that matches all of these criteria. If you are unsure exactly how to spell a last name, you can search using the "like" button instead of the "=" button. In this case, building the query "[last_name1] like "Albright"" should return entries with the last name of Albright, as well as those similar to Albright, but slightly different. I don't know yet just how similar the entries need to be in order to be included in a "like" search. The "all_text" field can be used to search for individuals who are not the first or second person listed on a stone, or to search for epitaphs or other things written on the features. In this case, you need to select text using the wildcard symbol, which in this program is "%". For example, to search for all features that mention the name "Gregg", the query would look like this: "[all_text] like "%GREGG%"". Note that the search is case-sensitive, and in most instances names are recorded on the stones (and in the database) in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS.
This project is supported in part by a grant from the Arkansas Humanities Council and the Department of Arkansas Heritage. |
