Parsons Cemetery is a historic cemetery, but it now offers a modern-day solution for easily finding people’s final resting places — a state-of-the-art gravesite locator tool.
Available via Burial Search, the locator can be accessed from ParsonsCemetery.com and via a QR code on signs at the cemetery. While on-site, visitors may use their smartphones to be guided to a gravesite with Burial Search website navigation or by Google Maps. A photo of the headstone is included.
In addition to searching with a person’s name or other filters like date of death, the tool allows users to locate over 13,000 gravesites on some 18 acres, including those of the more than 1,300 veterans buried there, and also explore still available spaces.
Parsons Cemetery is the only cemetery in Maryland and on the Delmarva Peninsula to offer the Burial Search feature, and among 201 cemeteries offering the tool across the country, said Rick Fahey, chairman of the Parsons Cemetery Advisory Committee.
“The detailed prep work by volunteers for this project has been lengthy,” he added. (Fahey has been involved with Parsons for over a quarter century.) The volunteers, including board members and their families, started computerizing the records 15 years ago using CIMS (Cemetery Information Management System). Because record-keeping had not been uniform over the centuries (the non-profit has been in operation since 1873), volunteers visited each gravesite, and using a probe and ground-penetrating radar, verified the accuracy of the information they had, before going public with the gravesite locator, Fahey said.
Chad Brockbrader, who is Parsons’ operations manager, said people use the tool for research from home, too.
“Opening up the records to the public has allowed updates and additions to be made when necessary — for example, learning that someone buried at the cemetery was a veteran.
“There’s no wait time when new information is added — it shows up right away. However, certain information can be kept private,” he added, “such as if someone has purchased a burial plot ahead of time.”
The website also allows people to send a link of specific gravesite information to someone else, and, for open plots, to book an appointment to discuss the site.
“It’s rewarding to have this project come to fruition,” said Fahey. Located at 912 N. Division St., “Parsons is a waterfront urban green space. We do a lot of things to make it a community asset. We hope people will check it out and consider it for their future burial plans.”
Brockbrader also has helped visitors with the new tool. “It’s nice to give the next generation their version of what a cemetery experience should be.”