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Posted: November 4, 2023

Digitizing Shaftsbury Cemeteries: Preserving Our Heritage

Our cemeteries are more than just resting places for the departed; they're windows into our cultural history, showcasing the traditions and beliefs of past generations. Yet, over time, maintaining and preserving these sacred spaces can become challenging, risking the loss of valuable information. But what if we could ensure these memories and stories are preserved for the future? Enter digitization.

Digitization is the process of turning physical records into digital format, a powerful tool for preserving cemetery records. By digitizing Shaftsbury's burial records, maps, and other important data, we ensure this information remains accessible and well-preserved. Well-organized digital records are easy to search, helping us trace family histories and records. Digital records also eliminate the risk of deterioration, allowing us to preserve memories for future generations.

Digitization offers more benefits. It helps our cemetery department manage cemeteries efficiently, ensuring proper care for lots, headstones and organized tasks. In short, digitization enhances access, preservation, and management of cemetery records and the department itself.

Digitizing cemeteries is now cost-effective, thanks to technological advancements. The Town of Shaftsbury partnered with Cemify for this significant project, aiming to preserve memories of those interred in our cemeteries.

I want to thank the Select Board, Town Administrator David Kiernan, Town Clerk Marlene Hall, and the Cemetery Committee Members for their invaluable support. Without them, this project wouldn't have been possible.

My goal is to complete the project by sometime in 2024. However, predicting the exact completion time remains a challenge due to its scale. Nevertheless, I've made substantial progress, and each cemetery is now open and searchable on the Town website. There is still a great deal of information that will be added and adjusted. Private cemeteries will also be included in our records, although mapping them in Cemify won't be possible due to their private locations. I've created a search engine that covers all our records; for active and inactive/private cemeteries, making it easy for people to find information, even if they don't know the name of the cemetery.

I hope people find this system as enjoyable to use as I found working on it for our Town.

Jen Holley
Cemetery Superintendent

Search Burial Records

Search our town burial records online using this search tool. The results will guide you to the respective Cemify website for each active town cemetery.

Our Cemify Websites

Search town burial records online on our Cemify websites if you already know the cemetery you want to explore.

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