MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WBTW) – You may call some local high schoolers batty for how they spent their Halloween morning.
Students from the Academy for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology combed through Ocean Woods Memorial Cemetery in Myrtle Beach collecting data for a city graveyard app that would help anyone research their family tree.
“It’s very spooky. And also it’s very fun,” said one student as he carefully stepped over headstones in the cemetery.
More than 125 students searched for whatever information they could find on the 7,000 people buried at Ocean Woods.
They collected data, like birth and death dates, for the app that will show an approximate location of graves and pictures of headstones.
The cemetery has a database already, but does not have GPS coordinates for graves.
The data will also be uploaded to the USGenWeb project website, an online center for genealogical research.
“If I push this button it’ll save the location for the grave whenever I go over there,” explained junior Rhiannon Green, holding a small GPS device she and other students used during the fieldtrip.
Students weren’t able to map out everything in the cemetery Tuesday, which is why Blake Vaught, a computer science teacher at the academy, told News13 he wants this to be a recurring trip.
As students sort and analyze the data throughout the school year, the city will use that information to help create the app.
“My students are collecting the data,” Vaught said. “The real, tedious work comes in the classroom—massaging that data and making it useable in the form of a GIS application, a map.”
Vaught said he doesn’t know how long this could take, but the city hopes to have the app and database up some time next year.
