Creating a cemetery map

Creating a cemetery map

Overview

Parish Online Mapping can be used to plot the locations of graves and store information about them. We don't do physical on-site surveys of your cemetery (there are lots of companies that can do that), but the software can be used as your primary source of cemetery records.

Functionality

Parish Online Mapping has two pre-created layers you can use to store your information;

Cemetery Boundaries

Found under the Cemeteries collection, this is a collaborative layer (meaning other Parish Online Mapping users can see your information, and vice versa) which can be used for drawing out the extent of your cemetery sites. Attribution can be included to store information about that cemetery; e.g. religious designation, land ownership and capacity.



To use this layer, draw a new area fully encapsulating the whole cemetery site, then add the information about it.

The layer is useful for seeing the distribution of cemetery sites across the country.

Cemetery Plots

Also found under the Cemeteries collection, this layer is where you draw out the individual plots and record information about who is buried there.


A great way to plot these is to use the rectangle tool in the Feature Editor. This allows you to plot an exact standard grave plot. You might like to switch the aerial photography layer on when doing this as you can often make out the cemetery plots using the "satellite" mode.



Be aware, this may get tedious if you need to do hundreds, so if you have lots of them it may be worth getting a cemetery survey done and for them to provide the data to us in a GIS format such as shapefile or geopackage.

Limitations

This is not currently a system for large scale cemeteries and full management, but for many smaller councils where there are only a small number of burials a year, this is a very cost effective solution.

Method

1. Use the existing Cemetery plot layer in the Cemeteries collection or create a new layer for this use the Knowledge Base article Creating Map Layers
2. Then add a feature to the layer Add, Edit and Delete Map Objects (Points, Lines and Polygons)
3. Uncheck the OS Premium Stack by mouse clicking the layer in the Ordnance Survey PSGA collection.
       

4. Then select the Aerial Photography Latest, providing details of plot locations and orientation
       
5. Assuming step 1 has been completed and step 2 has been reviewed and understood. Select the Add Feature for the layer in question. On the feature editor dialog that appears select the polygon icon, then the drop down to select the preset feature size.
                    

6. Move the cross-hair cursor to the approximate position of the new rectangle and click. A dotted polygon will generate around that location. Use the circled corner to rotate the feature or mouse click and drag it if the position is incorrect.
                     
7. Once in position and the requisite information has been added into the panel on the left, Plot ID or number, name etc Save. Zoom in and out to refresh the map window and see the changes.

A plot saved in an incorrect location?

At present there is no way to move the entire object, editing only moves individual elements of a feature one at a time.

1. Therefore delete the object, exit the feature editor if necessary, select the object and delete it
       
2. Then add another preset object in the correct location. Making sure of its location and Save. Zoom in and out to refresh the map window and see the changes.

Change the size of a plot, increase or decrease the size to fit a non standard plot

1. Create an standard preset object at the location required.
2. Exit the feature editor. Mouse click the feature to select the one to change. The object will be highlighted. Use the pencil icon to make it editable.
       

3. Move the cursor to one of the corners select and drag it to the new location. Repeat for each corner as necessary.
           
4. When finished, don’t forget to Save. Zoom in and out to refresh the map window and see the changes.



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