Web site locates graves in Utah

A fan of the Web site is Salt Lake City Cemetery sexton Mark Smith. He notes it is often difficult for people visiting there to remember where relatives' plots are among its vast 250 acres and 120,000 graves.

"If they look up information at home, they can just grab a map at our office and easily find the grave site," he said. But for people who don't know about that, he expects long lines all Memorial Day weekend at his office waiting to look up information on its database.

"People can do it on the Web at home, whenever it is convenient," Smith said. "They don't have to do it during our office hours. And we leave maps outside our door that they can pick up after hours."

The Web site helps diminish crowds at his office, he said. "You can imagine that with 120,000 graves, if we had just two people for each of those who need to know where they are, the lines here can get pretty long."

Thatcher said that most of the information has come from cemeteries that received state grants to computerize their data. They do not conduct gravestone surveys, but instead convert written sexton records. It helps cemeteries manage their records better and helps the state have a central database.

That has been supplemented from occasional private groups and Boy Scout projects that have surveyed cemeteries and written down information from gravestones. But Thatcher warns that groups interested in doing that information gathering must first contact her office and gather data in the proper format or it cannot be accepted.

Notarianni said, "The database has proven also to be a popular genealogy tool, and we have heavy traffic online. We get hits to our site from all over the world by people doing genealogy."

Thatcher adds that the site has links to other Web sites that help locate graves elsewhere nationally, and some Web sites even have photos of all graves in some cemeteries around the country — sometimes allowing online visits to graves when personal visits are not possible.

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