Volunteer researcher documents early burials, urges new map and ground-penetrating radar

Christie Oliver told the council July 15 she compiled a new inventory of early burials in the city cemetery and is working to correct long-standing gaps in the official records.

Oliver said her project identified about 384 people likely buried in the cemetery by 1880, but only 87 appeared in the existing burial index. Using a marked mason line and a row-by-row headstone survey, Oliver said volunteers located and photographed a large number of early markers and created a new name-by-location index and a separate name index that will be published online.

Oliver urged several next steps: reporting burials to the Utah State Historic Preservation Office as required by a state law enacted in April (she said the last annual burial report from the city was filed in 2006); producing a new scaled map to replace the 1930s-era map, adding signage and block markers to help locate early lots, and conducting targeted ground-penetrating radar surveys to find unmarked graves where headstones have deteriorated. She cautioned that ground-penetrating radar cannot reliably detect wood or bones when a wooden coffin has collapsed, but said the technology would still be useful to identify changes in soil density and stone features to target probing.

Oliver described results of her index work: of roughly 305 burials she focused on, 198 are now known by grave location and name; 107 are known by name but not specific location; 34 headstones are too deteriorated to read; and 79 remain unverifiable (including six adults and 73 children). She said volunteers had added 81 new people into FamilySearch and that work is continuing to attach images and records.

Council members thanked Oliver and asked logistical questions about radar rentals, volunteer roles and how deep early burials were dug. Oliver encouraged a combined approach: photographic documentation via volunteers for known markers and targeted radar/probing performed by qualified technicians where records and surface evidence suggested likely burials.

Why it matters: the project aims to correct century-old clerical decisions that assigned burials to lots without regard to their actual location; a new map and updated index could improve record accuracy, headstone preservation and future cemetery management.

Next steps: Oliver said indexes and photographs will be made available on the city website and FamilySearch; she requested council support for the mapping and signage work and for exploring focused ground-penetrating radar surveys.