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This post originally appeared on my personal website, at https://jolenesmith.net/post/eecwp/. I wrote it from my perspective working with Brian and Erin to build this site, to share reflections on the design process and to document how things work. I’ve reproduced it here in its entirety. ~ Jolene Smith I’ve been working on something for about the past year. It’s live now. East End Cemetery: A Place and its People East End Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, is the resting place of between 13,000 and 18,000 individuals, members of Richmond’s African-American community buried there between its establishment in 1891 and the mid-20th century. A couple of years ago,...

Years in the making, a searchable map of East End Cemetery is now accessible online. The map, which features drone-captured imagery, is the first digital initiative of the East End Cemetery Collaboratory, a learning community comprising faculty and staff from the University of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University and members of the Friends of East End.  When cemetery reclamation began in summer 2013, nearly all of the gravestones had been swallowed by dense vegetation, and burial records were nowhere to be found. Over the years, we have met many descendants searching for loved ones’ graves and helped them locate their plots whenever possible. Some family members...