Hadleyville Cemetery ArcCollector

Introduction

The Hadleyville cemetery project that was completed earlier in the semester was a large group project where the class had to go out and collect data on graves and put together a final map showing grave locations and containing a database for the graves. There was a high potential for error when the data was compiled into one big database because each team collected data from different sections of the grave. The purpose of this assignment was to go back to the cemetery and utilizing ArcCollector, test some of the graves to see if there were any errors in the original data.

Study Area

The data was collected from the western half of the cemetery. The cemetery is located in Eleva, Wisconsin. Eleva is approximately 15 minutes south of the Eau Claire campus. Figure 1 is a map of the study area for this project. 

Figure 1. Map of the study area for this project.

Methods

This project was heavily reliant on the geodatabase that was created before the data collection process. The database had to be created with domains so that the data entry process in ArcCollector would go as smoothly as possible. The first step was to create the geodatabase. The next step was to create the domains in the geodatabase. The domains that  were created were Date of Birth, Date of Death, and status. These domains would be helpful when entering certain pieces of data. The next step was to create the actual feature class and add all of the necessary attributes that would be recorded. The attributes in the feature class were grave ID, first name, last name, DOB, DOD, status, and joint tombstone. These were the attributes chosen in the previous project so it made sense to use them again. Once the feature class was created, it was time to go to the cemetery and collect the data. This portion of the methods is rather self-explanatory. Each grave was surveyed to the best ability. Some of the graves were difficult to read but collecting as much data from each grave is important. Once the data collection process was finished, it was time to compare the data. 

Results

After going back and looking at the two databases, the data is, for the most part, the same. The biggest issues withing the two databases is that some of the graves are shown in different locations. This changed up some of the grave IDs. Other than that there were only a few errors. Figure 2 shows the final map for the original Hadleyville project. 

Figure 2. The original Hadleyville project map.

The online map that was created with ArcCollector can be found at this link: ArcCollector Map

As you are able to see, between the two different maps, some of the placement is off. This is because when using ArcCollector, the GPS isn't as accurate as we might like. This is especially true in this case. Because the cemetery is in a rather remote location, the cell service isn't very good. This had a negative effect on the results. Figure 3 shows the original data table where you can see some of the similarities and issues.

Figure 3. Part of the original dataset.

Conclusion

This project allowed me to go back and revisit a previous project to see if it was done accurately. This was a good learning experience because I got to see what it was like to basically do the same data collection in two different ways. This allowed me to see the pros and cons of the two data collection processes that were used. If I were to do this again, I would have brought the original data that was collected along when doing the ArcCollector process. This would have helped to see right away if there were issues in the original data. To conclude, it would seem that, for the most part, the original Hadleyville project was done accurately.