Project Graverobber
Project Description
Issue: To help follow up/build upon on the computer work done by Mr. John Haile who catalogued the graves in the parish cemeteries in Shamokin, PA. John wrote a computer program documenting all the grave/burials in our cemeteries. This resource is proven to be invaluable in our current day to day operation of the cemeteries. Our parish secretary was able to use John’s program to constantly update the cemetery data as new burials occurred. Unfortunately, John passed away about a year ago and we have not been able to continue using his program since his death. John’s widow may still have his various CDs from his computer work. Speaking with Ann Marie Drust, Mother Cabrini Parish Secretary, would be necessary to determine what are the current needs to continue cataloging burials for cemetery organization. Hopefully a new program can organize current data and take us into the future. It would also be helpful to organize and research some historical grave-sites.
Action: To somehow follow up on John’s creative computer work and/or figure out a program which would serve to build on John’s historical to update.
Goals
Catalogue all current graves using as much information as we have. At the same time creating a system for inputing new grave-sites based on land still available. IT would be great if the program could also be online, in that people can access it to find the location of a particular grave.
Constraints
We can discuss at a later time.
Impact
To the parish staff, such a tool would be invaluable. It would also give the church a means to better administrate the cemetery.
Resources
We can look for the old CDs used for cataloguing, and we have the information already input into the parish computers.
Group Summary
The late Mr. John Haile left behind a system for cataloging and referencing the graves of those buried in Shamokin, Pennsylvania cemeteries. Without being able to maintain the system since John’s death one year ago, the parish staff has been unable to update or otherwise continue using the program. The parish secretary could benefit from our team revisiting John’s computer program and updating or overhauling it for daily use in a user-friendly, informational, and organized manner. Further details may be obtained by reaching out to John’s widow and requesting John’s old CDs for use in jumpstarting the collected entries for a grave database.
Identified Pains
- An unmaintained and undocumented program needs revisiting in order for continued use
- It’s difficult to keep track of hundreds or even thousands of graves in accordance with the rapid growth of cemetery plots
Proposed Problem Description
If the pre-existing system turns out to be usable and scalable, the team will build on top of legacy code to create something that satisfies the parish secretary’s requirements. Overall, a full-stack web or mobile application will be developed with a database to log the directory of graves and a front-end interface that is intuitive for use by cemetery staff. Robust research will need to be conducted in order to quickly aggregate old entries as well as add the last year’s worth of graves to the system.
Proposed Goals
Determine the preferences of John’s widow and find the best platform to migrate this system to (CDs are obsolete and the database of graves would be better served using cloud services; additionally, the medium — website, app, etc. will likely be a factor that needs to be chosen).
Contributors
Brooke Bullek, Stefano Cobelli, Andrew Capuano, Daniel Vasquez
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Brainstorm!
Contribute: Cole Whitley, Jordan Faith, Levi Adair, Anushika
take aways: There is no good system currently to keep up to date records, so it is easier to do it proactively as they are put into the graveyard then later on.
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