Content Update: We Now Have Access to Records!

[jonhoranic]

News:

The Good

I met with Sheila Rothwell in the Brush Creek Cemetery office and was able to get a section map along with a look at the folders that have tons of records we have to work with! There is plenty of different pieces of information we can mark up including some saved obituaries!

The Bad

The documents are all paper and cannot be removed from the office. I have made a meeting time with her later in the week (Thursday, as long as no official appointments are made) to take the time to make copies or at least get snapshots.

The Ugly

I do not have any large-quantity photo storage capabilities, so I will ONLY be able to get paper copies. There are a LOT of separate pieces and with all of them being paper will have to TRANSPOSE ALL OF THEM. Not all the info is standardized either, so that is up to us to decide what to do.

Discussion:

I am going to to put up some code frameworks in a folder and I want everyone to look at it and comment on how we will be able to mark this up. We should also look at the TEI model ( #4 ) we were introduced to and begin to outline what we can use. This is open to discussion for thoughts and examples. Post whatever you come up with (models, lines of code, discussion points) within your message!

@laurenmcguigan @JaredKramer40 @ebeshero @RJP43

[ebeshero]

@jonhoranic @laurenmcguigan @JaredKramer40 Okay: this is a digital archives research challenge. You need a way to sort the records and associate them with your own images of gravesites. That's going to be part of the GitHub filing.

You need a file management system (yay, GitHub!), just as much as you need a markup strategy, and the one actually depends on the other.

• Probably you want each gravesite to have its own file directory, with associated photos and transcribed files from Sheila's office.
• You probably want a directory that surrounds all the gravesites in one section/area.
• Since you probably want to digitize the map, you want to be recording GPS coordinates at each gravesite. As they say, "there's an app for that"! (Look for the compass app on an iPhone, and I bet there's something similar on other kinds of mobile devices.) You want to find a regular way of doing that: take the reading on the same area of the headstone for each headstone...Does that make sense?
• Each grave gets an XML record--and here you'll want to go back and read the Epidoc guidelines that @emylonas posted earlier for some inspiration, though you'll want to tailor this to the kinds of material you're looking at.
• One question is, does each grave get its own XML file? It could, or you could link the records in a single file. I imagine it might be easiest to distribute the work if you start with each gravesite recorded in its own file, and then stitch them together in a single file later if you want. (That's not hard to do.)
• And yes, you need a basic model for how to begin. I look forward to seeing your code frameworks!

[laurenmcguigan]

I know I have been away, so I just want to make sure I am getting this right. We are going to do a specific section of the cemetery, find the information for each individual headstone, and take a picture of each one? If I am correct, Jon do you know if the information Sheila has is organized by specific areas, or would we have to look through all the documents and find the ones we want? I have no problem transposing, and once we have all the information written up, I can tag it using Regex. But we should also think about what we want to tag before I start transposing, because there may be some tags that need written in manually. Jon I know, you wanted to do some type of map, so getting the coordinates would be great. I am interested in looking into birth years and death years to find correlations in age range etc... and the using SVG to create graphs, so that is something I will want to mark up, so that is something we will have to figure out as far as the tei rules go. Anyway, these are just my thoughts. Let me know if you have any idea how Sheila has her information organized, and then I can maybe come down with you to make copies, or we can take out a camera from the library and use that for pictures.

[jonhoranic]

@laurenmcguigan
I'm responding to this via the mobile GitHub interface on my phone so I'm not sure how well formatted this comment will turn out.

Sheila has all of her records very well kept, and there is a system that she has so we can pull everything from just that section (referenced as Section I, the letter not the numeral). Each lot has a file folder, written on the folder it is the ID number for the section that corresponds with a lot map (check the Overview file on the main page) and then the number of spaces in order. A name next to a number means that person is buried in that space, a blank next to the number means it's empty.

Within the folders is a treasure trove, many folders differ but I'll do my best to explain. Obituariy clippings are included if they find them, lot owners (these are the people who bought the area to be dug, could be the person who was buried there who got it in advance or someone related/close) names and receipts, backround information of the buried person in the interment order(s), headstone order forms, zoomed in lot diagrams, small notes and specifications for various things (military, garden decoration, etc.), and the information and payment orders for burial services. So it's a mixed bag of info that can be really interesting to parse thought!

I told her the only time I would be able to make it out there for copies would be early on Thursday morning (10ish till 1ish because I have class at 2:20) if she's not busy with walk in appointments. I told her that the team would be out in about the area, so if we wanted to rough schedule or you just wanted to stop in, the office hours are Mon-Thur: 10:00 to 3:00. and just mention you are working with the project group. Other then that you an I would need to correspond a bit more to finalize anything.

Other then that, Jarad has taken a lot of photos already, we will just need to name the image files and then match them with content as it rolls in. If we are missing anything we can easily get those taken.

Currently we are working on getting that splash page and some various wire frames done, and since you know a bit more about the map concept if you could sketch some examples of what that would be like id love to see them!

One step at a time