Tech T.I.P. – February 4, 2010

The Living Book of the Dead
by Denise Barrett Olson

Thanks to the benefits of electronic publishing, family historians don’t have to wait until they have all the details before publishing a family history project. Now we can publish what we have and later, when our research provides more detail, easily publish a new edition. To make my point, I’ll use my current cemetery project, the Huguenot Cemetery Guide.

My inspiration is a guide created for the St. Augustine National Cemetery by historian Robert Hawk in the late 1980s. His guide is a cross between a simple cemetery inventory and a scrapbook. When his research gave him a story about an individual, he presented the story along with unit insignia, newspaper clippings and other memorabilia. The technical aspects of the publication leave a lot to be desired - it was created with a typewriter and copy service - but the content is fascinating.

The basis of my Huguenot Cemetery project is an inventory taken in 1892, less than a decade after the cemetery’s closing. Although there were many unmarked graves even then, that index was able to document many wooden markers that no longer exist. In 1998, Florence Mitchell wrote a history of the cemetery and spent hours collecting burial records from local church rolls, adding significantly to the 1892 list.

If all I wanted to present was an inventory, there’s already several good ones available, although the best is a single typed copy “bound” in a 3-ring notebook at the local historical society’s research library. I want to include more than just names, dates and inscriptions. Many of the people buried in this cemetery made significant contributions to the early American history of Florida during the territorial and early statehood years. There’s too many stories here to settle for just a simple inventory. And, I want something that’s available far beyond local library shelves. An electronic document published online not only gives me worldwide reach, but allows me to include all the photos, clippings, sketches and diagrams I want. Since I’m publishing electronically, there’s no extra cost for images or color.

Of course, a guide such as I envision will take years to complete. But, that doesn’t mean it has to wait that long to be published. Several months ago, I transcribed the 1892 inventory and published it on Scribd. Anyone can view and download it. My guide project begins by reorganizing that inventory list into something more manageable and incorporating the photos I’ve taken in the cemetery. Once that step is done and I’ve included a basic history of the cemetery, I’ll publish the first edition of my guide.

From there I’ll incorporate the burial rolls from church records. Then I’ll start working on individual histories of the people buried here. I’ve already done some sketches for my Graveyard Rabbits site, but there will be many more. Since many of the gravestones came from Charleston and even farther north, there are some interesting possibilities there too.

As additional content is added, publishing a new edition is as simple as uploading the file. Scribd archives the older version and replaces it with the new. All I have to do is include a note that this is a new edition and describe what has been added. Interested readers can subscribe to my Scribd profile and be notified when I publish new or updated content.

This book of the dead will be a living document, growing and changing regularly as new research, biographical sketches, images, maps and diagrams are added. And, even better, it will be readily available online to anyone interested. With luck, it will attract other researchers who can add their parts of the puzzle giving it even more value.

As soon as the first edition is published, I’ll post an announcement at The Graveyard Rabbit of Moultrie Creek and add a link to the Association of Graveyard Rabbits group on Diigo. The transcription of the 1892 inventory has already been published at Scribd with links on Diigo.

If you would like to learn more about Scribd, you can read my Getting Started With Scribd at Family Matters.