Mortuary Mapping, my online site documenting the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center Historic Cemetery launched in early May. This first phase of the project focused on the creation and implementation of the interactive maps of the burials using Cartodb. However, I see Mortuary Mapping as a space that will grow alongside the project research. Next month I will be traveling to California to conduct archival research. I’m hoping to ideally locate the burial records (although all attempts to locate them thus far have failed), early maps of the area, and any newspaper information related to the cemetery.

This summer I plan to expand Mortuary Mapping by adding an archival section. I will not only be sharing digitized images from the archives (pending of course individual archive regulation regarding the redistribution of their material), and creating a database of the information I locate. Anthropologists are all about context, and I hope that adding some about the site will allow others to connect with the cemetery, as well as save other researchers a bit of legwork. I look forward to sharing my finds from the archives!