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ZAMBOANGA PENINSULA POLYTECHNIC STATE UNIVERSITY

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Tel. No. (062) 993-0023

COLLEGE OF INFORMATION AND COMPUTING STUDIES

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Mission: Produce globally competent human capital
and research innovation for quality lives.
Goal: Develop and sustain the cultures of innovation,
collaboration, responsiveness, and excellence.
Core Values: Love of God and Country; Social
responsibility; Accountability; & Commitment/ Dedication to
the Service

CEMETERY MAPPING AND INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR

LUND MEMORIAL GARDEN WITH THE USE OF SMARTPHONES

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the System Integration & Architecture 2 Subject

By:
OLIVER, LEAH MARIE S.

December 2022
INTRODUCTION

Cemetery management can be quite difficult and crucial when done traditionally.
Although excessive doing time can be minimized by the use of technology. This system
is a powerful data manager that allows users to track all information about graves,
occupants, buyers, maps, and sales of the cemetery. The purpose of this system is to
lessen the manpower and the time-consuming. And to change the current state of
technology they use (Lorenzo, 2016).

Lund Memorial Garden is a public cemetery. This institution was founded and
established started on the year 1938. Lund Memorial Garden uses Microsoft Excel they
use it to save and update the data. The proposed online project contains the basic
information about the buyer and the information of the interment.

In some events, most of the cemetery encountered some difficulties in terms of

locating graves, especially in the month of November. And to solve the problem they use
Microsoft Excel to locate the area, lot, and section of the missing graves. For the sales,
the customer usually came to the office to inquire about the price of the lots. The
Cemetery Mapping and Information System was proposed to replace the manual locating
of graves in Lund Memorial Garden to advance an organized flow in locating graves
instead using of Microsoft Excel to store the collected information. Since the study
involves the proper recording of information, tracing the location of graves, and
disseminating information regarding the cemetery.

With the current system, manually they locate, search, and record the information
and location of the deceased person which is time-consuming and takes a lot of
endeavors. But the proponents made some improvements that the current system missed
out on. They recreate it to be an easier, more efficient, and hassle-free proposed project
along with the integration of software and hardware from their very own smartphones,
which will further on be developed into a more sophisticated system. Thus, creating an
application with a flexible software and database with just accesses of swipes and touches
from smartphones.
The proponent of the proposed project system entitled “Cemetery Mapping and
Information System for Lund Memorial Garden” aimed to provide a platform for the user
to quickly locate and less effort into finding their relative graves and a platform for the
personnel to access, update and maintain the data efficiently. With this system, the user
will not worry about locating the grave of their deceased loved ones. The information
about the deceased person in that particular cemetery will be stored in this system, the
user and the personnel will simply type the deceased name the person will pop up on the
screen, and the location and other information about the system make personnel and user
experience hassle-free.

a. Scope of the Study

The concept of cemetery mapping and information system is the

cemetery personnel manually locate the deceased buried in the system by
simply checking the data input like the name of the death, the area where
it was buried, and the date of birth and date of death. The cemetery
management subdivided the area by numbering phases of the area. The
advantage of this phasing is to easily locate the memorial lot number and
other information given.

The proposed project system makes the search for the location and
information of the deceased person in a particular cemetery easier.

b. Objectives of the Study

1. To determine all the information about the deceased persons and

graveyard fast.
2. To give solutions to the problem that the current system facing.
 3. To make end user and personnel perform their task or finding will be easy
and not that complicated.

c. Related Review Literature of the Study

Cemeteries are an intersection point between cultural heritage, religion, and

outdoor recreation, and essential in public life (Nordh and Swensen, 2018). They are also
considered as a symbol of love, religion, and culture across the globe. Due to rapid
urbanization and associated population growth, the demand for the resting place is
continually increasing and at times unmanageable in the urban setup. This has emerged as
a serious concern to many urban municipalities across the globe since the sentiments are
attached to it. Spatial mapping of graves provides an opportunity not only to manage
efficiently, but also to locate quickly. It is quite difficult to generalize the managing
practices followed by urban local bodies across the globe, it’s mainly based on the
religious practices followed in the region and space constraints.

In most of the literature, mapping cemeteries were generally part of archeological

studies (De Laet et al., 2015; Lysandrou and Agapiou, 2016); Salesse et al., 2018;
Staboultzidis et al., 2017), and some was categorized in natural developments such as
bird diversity in urban space (Tryjanowski et al., 2017).

The geographical information system has been utilized in the development of the
cemeteries in different parts of the Turkey, and there are several projects associated with
it. The idea of this pilot project is to cut down the cost spent on building a database using
sophisticated advanced mapping technologies by introducing simpler yet efficient
mapping technique using smartphone and crowdsourcing technique.

In the city of Ankara, Ankara metropolitan municipality published an online map

with the information of the graves, which allows users to find the location and other
information of their beloved ones’ on the digital kiosk. This is to reduce the workload of
the workers guiding visitors at the cemetery. Mainly aimed to facilitate visitors during
special days: Father’s, Mother’s Day, and on other religious festivals (Ankara B.B.,
2018).

Cemeteries provide a wealth of information to anthropologists, historians,

archaeologists, as well as the descendants of the deceased (Byer and Mundell 2003:95).
Genealogists, for example, can find an abundance of information within a cemetery.
When linked to other information, the inscriptions on monuments not only record a
person’s name and dates of birth and death, but through ancillary records, often describe
where the deceased lived, their occupations and social affiliations, the manner of their
death, personal traits that surviving family members valued, and the names of relatives.
These inscriptions and associated records may provide invaluable historical data
regarding local physical and cultural description, along with data that in many cases may
not be found anywhere else. Cemeteries, grave markers and other attributes are narratives
describing social and economic structure, religious tenets, and ethnic composition. They
can provide insight into earlier customs, religious beliefs, folklore, art, and cultural
dimensions. Even in the absence of inscriptions, the landscape of cemeteries can reveal
much about cultural values and priorities through the spatial arrangement, condition and
surroundings of graves.

Burial grounds have been temporary in many cases; not surviving beyond the
existence of the societies that created them, even if that existence may have been for
several hundred years. Land used by the cemeteries has often been surrendered to new
land uses. However, burial grounds may be preserved through planning or happenstance;
those in areas that have consistently maintained large populations throughout history are
often preserved in some fashion. Egypt is a place well known for its ancient funerary
practices and archaeological record, yet Cairo’s City of the Dead, is today in use by
squatters, changing its use and the intent of the previous generations. Space limitations
and cultural practice may limit the time bodies may remain interred in a cemetery. In
western societies, under the impetus of migration, economic development, and urban land
use change, cemeteries are often moved, although frequently the monuments are
relocated rather than the human remains. With population shifts, change in economic
circumstances, or cultural values, people become unable or unwilling to take care of their
ancestors’ cemeteries, which then are either abandoned or fall into disrepair.

Lack of maintenance results in the loss of structures and other cemetery entities
(Cobb 1978) such as the oldest and unmarked graves. Monuments and markers (Byer and
Mundell 2003). General regulations on the maintenance, containment, or preservation of
cemeteries did not exist in the United States until 1966 when the National Historic
Preservation Act resulted in the increased number of cemeteries categorized as
archaeological sites (Nance 1999; Tyler 2000). However, cemeteries are not considered
appropriate for designation on the National Register of Historic Places unless the
cemetery itself represents a historic landscape or site (Tyler 200:95). The preservation of
prehistoric burial sites, such as those of indigenous peoples of North America must
adhere to archaeological standards and Federal laws that encompass these types of
burials, such as the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
(NAGPRA). In the United States regulation of ordinary cemeteries is relinquished to the
individual States. Many States enacted legislation to protect cemeteries prior to 1966, one
of the first being California (An Act to Protect the Bodies of Deceased Person and Public
Grave Yards 1854). Widespread state legislation of cemetery laws began in the 1930’s.

Cemeteries within the United States are in various phases of use ranging from
presently in use and well maintained, to no longer visible and effectively ‘lost’ to modern
culture. In the United States, as elsewhere, human remains and their place are important.
When physical artifacts are at risk of being changed or destroyed, these cultural resources
should be recorded for the future by careful documentation. Frequently documentation of
cemeteries is either incomplete or nonexistent, at best consisting of lists of named and
possibly dates of death (Byer and Mundell 2003). One proposed means of making
enhanced documentation possible is through the use of a geographic information system.
Cemeteries play an important role in the community. As a vital place for
remembrance and mourning, they need to be properly planned for and maintained.
Traditionally, cemetery property maps that show the boundaries, sections, subdivisions,
lots, and grave spaces were sketched by hand or cartographic software in a fixed scale.
Paper records were usually kept. The related attribute data were also typically recorded in
paper books or spreadsheets and were updated manually. This traditional method of
cemetery mapping and record management is tedious, time-consuming, and cost-
ineffective. As the hard-copy property maps and attribute data are not connected, it is also
difficult to update and manage the records. In addition, paper maps and files are hard to
store and carry and can easily be misplaced, ripped, or stolen. Paper materials deteriorate
over time and are susceptible to fires and water related disasters. Pencil marking fade
over time and are easily smudged. Furthermore, the actual information contained within
these records varies and the lack of standardization means that vital information may not
be recorded (Bennett & Davies, 2015; Schmidt, 2018).

Consequently, a recent trend is to use Geographic Information System (GIS) as a

tool to either recreate these records digitally or ensure that modern records are taken
appropriately (Ayers, 2006; Gonzalez-Tennant, 2009; Güney & Celik, 2003; Quesada,
Baena & Blasco, 1994). At national-level, the Historic American Landscape
Survey/Cultural Resources GIS (CRGIS) within the National Park Service (NPS),
working together with the United States Department of Veterans Affairs’ National
Cemetery Administration, has used GIS and GPS on inventory cultural resources from
battlefields to national cemeteries (Stein, 2006; NPS (n.d.)). Likewise, Arlington National
Cemetery with 400,000 gravesites has gone through the digital transformation recently
(Montalbano, 2012). Nevertheless, these national-level projects were focused on data
collection and storing, not on cemetery data analysis.

Scientists have called for turning genealogical analysis onto GIS since numerous
types of data can be represented in GIS projects (Shular, 2009). However, despite their
well-recognized advantages, geospatial technologies have not been rapidly and
consistently deployed in cultural resource management, especially at the local-level
cemetery management, because of a lack of funding, technological personnel and skills,
and other infrastructure, as well as historical and logistical issues (Montalbano, 2012;
Sanjuán, & Wheatley, 1999). Besides, demographic and genealogical research focused on
cultural and historical analysis using GIS data is still very limited. There is a lack of
systematic framework and procedure for digital cemetery mapping and data analysis,
especially for a local-scale cemetery with limited resources.

According to Dr. Bass, and Kissing, stated in his study that heritage research
targeted memorial gardens as burial sites also increased. There are 200 graves in the city
of Hungary, inhabited by a national minority, according to the description, identification
and virtual mapping of the cemetery. They increase the importance of the grave as
sources for interpreting the history of the people, as well as for fulfilling its purpose in
the document and witnessing the fall of culture. Since the focus is on national traditions,
religion and customs, as well as the remains of the cemetery, which can convince us of
the importance by clarifying its details. In addition, preserving the surrounding area, as
well as improving the quality of life of society, is the goal of the study. Assisting the
individuals and groups who work to maintain and preserve its local features, as well as to
the cemetery, which is associated with increased awareness of the existence and necessity
of behaviour, was the extension of their research. Lots of people studying the
environment and local history at the cemetery; they were also on site for training and
recreation.
C. 2.1 Synthesis Table of the Study
Term of Summary
Author Year Country Purpose
Source Points
They are also
considered as a
symbol of love,
religion, and
culture across
the globe. Due
to rapid
urbanization and To rapid
associated urbanization
Nordh and
population Internet and associated
Swensen, 2018
growth, the population
demand for the growth.
resting place is
continually
increasing and
at times
unmanageable
in the urban
setup.
Ankara B.B., Ankara Ankara Internet Which allows
2018 metropolitan users to find the
municipality location and
published an other
online map with information of
 the information
of the graves,
which allows
users to find the
location and their beloved
other ones.
information of
their beloved
ones’ on the
digital kiosk.
In the United
States, as
elsewhere,
Human remains
human remains
and their place
and their place
are important.
are important.
When physical
When physical
artifacts are at
artifacts are at
Byer and risk of being
United States risk of being Internet
Mundell 2003 changed or
changed or
destroyed these
destroyed, these
cultural
cultural
resources
resources should
should be
be recorded for
recorded.
the future by
careful
documentation.
Bennett & Traditionally, Internet Paper records
Davies, 2015; cemetery were usually
Schmidt, 2018 property maps kept. The
that show the related attribute
boundaries, data were also
sections, typically
subdivisions, recorded in
lots, and grave paper books or
spaces were spreadsheets
sketched by and were
hand or updated
cartographic manually.
software in a
fixed scale.
Paper records
were usually
kept. The related
attribute data
were also
typically
recorded in
paper books or
spreadsheets and
were updated
manually. This
traditional
method of
cemetery
mapping and
record
management is
tedious, time-
consuming, and
cost-ineffective.
As the hard-
 copy property
maps and
attribute data are
not connected, it
is also difficult
to update and
manage the
records.
Montalbano, Despite their Internet Geospatial
2012; Sanjuán, well-recognized technologies
& Wheatley, advantages, have not been
1999 geospatial rapidly and
technologies consistently
have not been deployed in
rapidly and cultural
consistently resource
deployed in management,
cultural resource especially at the
management, local-level
especially at the cemetery
local-level management,
cemetery because of a
management, lack of funding,
because of a technological
lack of funding, personnel and
technological skills, and other
personnel and infrastructure.
skills, and other
infrastructure, as
well as
historical and
 logistical issues
Table 1: SYNTHESIS TABLE OF THE STUDY

D. Methodology of the Study

This part of document indicates the use of methods and techniques being used by
the researcher in conducting this study. This includes a detailed discussion on the literal
background of the research method chosen. The current part of document indicates the
process of developing the language mobile application. Also, discuss in detail the various
stage of developing the methodology of this study. This includes the system development
method its result and discussion. The developer will be utilizing the work plan, anal
strategies, and the required documents.

e. SDLC Approach

The SDLC Approach used in this study is Modified Waterfall Model, this
model is simple and easy to understand and apply. It is easy to manage due to right
rigidity of the model-each phase has specific deliverables and a review process in this
model phases are processed and completed one at phases do not understood overlap. It
works well and requirements are very well understood.

MODIFIED WATERFALL MODEL

 Figure 1: MODIFIED WATERFALL MODEL
REQUIREMENT GATHERING AND ANALYSIS PHASE – this is the first phase
where requirements to produce a product are gathered and analyzed. This is the phase
which involves customer. All information about the entire process are identified to be
designed and delivered here.

DESIGN PHASE – the requirements from the earlier phase are documented and
converted into technical design. Like what hardware, system software, technology,
language are used etc. are specified.
IMPLEMENT PHASE – output from design phase are used and implemented to achieve
the goal. They are split in program units. These program units are developed
independently and functionally tested. This is called Unit Testing.

TEST PHASE – here all program units which are developed in implement phase are
integrated and tested together to see end product has all desired functionalities required.

DEPLOY PHASE – once test phase is successfully completed, it is deployed in customer

environments and product is released.

MAINTENANCE PHASE – if any changes are required in client environments then they
are upgraded and released as patches to fix any issues that come up after deployment.
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Figure 2: CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

BLOCK DIAGRAM

Router

Database
PC/Laptop

System

Smart
phone

Figure 3: BLOCK DIAGRAM

FLOWCHART

Figure 4: FLOWCHART
DEFINITION OF TERMS

 Cemetery Mapping and Information System – a proposed project system by

the researcher for Lund Memorial Garden.

 Smartphones – a device where they can also search or easy to locate the lot area
of their loved ones.

 Data Gathered – the information/s that the researcher gathered from the
cemetery’s office personnel/s.
PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE
 PHP – is a general-purposes scripting language geared toward web development.
It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in
1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced
by The PHP Group.
 HTML – the HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup
language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be
assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets and scripting languages
such as JavaScript.
 JavaScript – is a text-based programming language used both on the client-side
and server-side that allows you to make web pages interactive. Where HTML and
CSS are languages that give structure and style to web pages, JavaScript gives
web pages interactive elements that engage a user.
 CSS – Cascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language used for describing the
presentation of a document written in a markup language such as HTML or XML.
CSS is a cornerstone technology of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and
JavaScript.
 Sublime – Sublime Text is a shareware cross-platform source code editor. It
natively supports many programming languages and markup languages. Users can
expand its functionality with plugins, typically community-built and maintained
under free-software licenses. To facilitate plugins, Sublime Text features a Python
API.
 Python – is a high-level, general-purpose programming language. Its design
philosophy emphasizes code readability with the use of significant indentation.
Python is dynamically-typed and garbage-collected. It supports multiple
programming paradigms, including structured, object-oriented and functional
programming.
 API – stands for application programming interface. In essence, and API acts as a
communication layer, or as the name says, an interface, that allows different
systems to talk to each other without having to understand exactly what each
other does. APIs can come in many forms or shapes.
 MySQL – is a relational database management system (RDBMS) developed by
Oracle that is based on structured query language (SQL). A database is a
structured collection of data. It may be anything from a simple shopping list to a
picture gallery or a place to hold the vast amounts of information in a corporate
network.