If Lane Street Project had an inspo board, these images would be tacked across the top. 

I drove over to Athens yesterday to listen to UGA students talk about their semester’s work storymapping the families of historic Brooklyn Cemetery.

Linda Davis founded Friends of Brooklyn Cemetery in 2006. She’s part of the descendant community, and I look forward to speaking with her soon and tapping into her wisdom and wealth of experience.

I tried to visit the cemetery before the talk started, but it’s accessed from the parking lot of a church, and I didn’t know where the gates were or what the rules were around visitation. There are several cemeteries I want to visit in the Athens area, so I’ll see it next trip. 

I sat on the front row near the students, and I overheard several of them mention “my family.” I was briefly thrown as all but two of a dozen or so were white (just one is Black), and Brooklyn is an African-American cemetery. As they presented, however, it became clear that the students identify very closely with the particular families they were assigned to research. 

Each StoryMap used the same design layout. For each family, researchers included an introduction, a family tree, a map tour of the gravesites, a timeline and map tour of addresses significant to the family’s history, and a spotlight on one family member.

For example:

Project members acknowledged some of the limitations of their research.

(And a nod to Lyndon House Arts Center, which hosts sponsor Historic Athens’ monthly programming.)

Odd Fellows, Vick, and Rountree Cemeteries don’t have a major research university in their backyard, but East Carolina and North Carolina State Universities aren’t far away. Odd Fellows is perfect for this kind of storymapping project, and I am exploring ways to make it happen. (Including maybe taking an intro GIS course myself.) 

See more of Community Mapping Lab’s work in and around Athens, including the Brooklyn Cemetery, here.