Mapping Civil War Veterans

Hopeworks N' Camden continues to impress me with the ways they manage to demonstrate impacts of GIS/GPs and related technologies while also impacting the lives of so many youth and college students.

Their latest example is Mapping Civil War Veterans. The team from Hopeworks used GPS to map out the gravesites in historic Harleigh Cemetery. So? Well, their Google Earth points were linked with photos of the headstones that hlped them connect one woman with the burial site of her great grandfather. Here is the Hopeworks description:

Recently Hopeworks was contacted by a woman looking for information about her great grandfather. He was a Civil War veteran, John Warner Kinsey, buried in Camden. She had various documents that belonged to him including letters, enlistment and discharge papers, and notifications about his government pension. However, she did not know where in Camden he was buried. Seeing our article in the paper about the Civil War veteran project, she contacted us about information on John Kinsey. It turns out he was included in our survey and we were able to provide information on John's location. He served in both the 7th and 37th Regt. NJ Volunteers. Another interesting note was that by viewing the image we took of the headstone, she found that John's wife was also buried there - who also served in the Civil War!