Local Government - Cemeteries Department
Case Study Three
DIGITISATION OF CEMETERY REGISTERS & PLOT MAPS
DATA CAPTURE OF RECORDS & PROVISION OF SEARCHING SOFTWARE
PROJECT BACKGROUND
This Council based in Scotland hold cemetery and crematorium records dating
back to the Eighteenth Century.
These records are stored within hand-written bound registers. Lairs (graves) are
marked onto large cemetery and sectional maps.
With just one copy of these registers and maps - it was important that they were
backed up (digitised). The council would then be able to continue to access and
possibly reprint these records should some form of disaster destroy them.
Some of the registers are very heavy and the maps unwieldy - therefore finding
and retrieving the information within them was sometimes difficult.
THE PROJECT
TownsWeb Archiving Ltd met with staff at the Council on a number of
occasions and then after a successful tender process, began working on the
project. The project was to:
- Digitise every page in the registers; Digitise the maps;
- Capture records from the registers and link the records to the digitised pages
- Provide software to allow staff to find digitised pages by searching on: cemetery, section, lair number, deceased forename, deceased surname, date of burial, owner forename, owner surname, date of purchase
- Provide software to allow staff to maintain their cemetery records
- Provide files (spreadsheets) of deceased records that the council could optionally upload into their own systems.
THE ITEMS TO BE DIGITISED
The council has approximately 150 bound books and more than 30 large
cemetery maps that are more than 150 years old.
The fragile and precious nature of these old documents meant that only flat-bed
and none contact digitising equipment could be used on this project.
DIGITISATION OF THE CEMETERY REGISTERS
Due to the location and the number of cemetery registers involved in this project
it was decided that it would be more suitable to perform the digitisation of the
registers onsite (at the council’s offices). TownsWeb Archiving took portable
equipment to the Council office and spent one week digitising all of the
registers.
Each page image was processed to tiff and jpeg formats at 300dpi and in
greyscale. Each file was named sequentially within a folder pertaining to the
book within a particular cemetery. For example:
/CouncilName/CemeteryName/BurialRegisters/1890/pge01.tif, pge02.tif etc.
DIGITISATION OF THE CEMETERY LAIR MAPS
Due to the size of the cemetery maps it was decided that it would be better to
scan these offsite (at TownsWeb Archiving’s offices). Our specialist equipment
has been uniquely designed to scan large documents at high resolution.
Each map was processed to tiff and jpeg formats in full colour. Due to the
dimensions of these maps the files were large (200Mb to 300Mb). We therefore
produced a further set of files that were smaller and could be opened quickly.
CAPTURING THE RECORDS
All of the records within the books were captured. Aiming for an accuracy rate
of at least 95% we performed double data-entry & various validation processes.
The captured records were supplied within spreadsheets and text files.
ACCESSING THE RECORDS
TownsWeb Archiving’s book viewing software was supplied to the council.
Linked to the page images - this allowed the council to find records by cemetery,
section, lair number, deceased name and date of burial.
We also captured all of the lair numbers from the cemetery maps and provided
software that allowed staff to be able to find maps and sections of maps by
entering a cemetery, section and lair number.
END OF PROJECT - TIMESCALES & SUPPORT
This project, which involved digitising more than 150 books, capturing more
than 140,000 records and then loading the data into our book viewing software ,
took just 2.5 months to complete. We continue to support the council staff.
TownsWeb Archiving Ltd can be contacted on
01536 713834 or on the web at
www.townswebarchiving.com or via email at
enquiries@townswebarchiving.com.
