I’ve been slowly transcribing the 347 records from Green-Wood’s 1863 burial ledger. So far, a 20-record session takes approximately 90 minutes—if I don’t get sucked down an archival rabbit hole. Common rabbit holes are the Manhattan and Brooklyn city directories to verify names, and other online sources that list antiquated terms for diseases that either are known by their modern names, or are seldom seen anymore. Marasmus, for example. I have transcribed about 40 records so far. There is a lot of work ahead.

I never thought this process would be easy, but I should have assumed it would be more precarious. Beyond the limited data set I am working with—as a result of the cemetery shutting down non-essential operations like archival research—a hydra of other data issues has emerged. It’s not just a matter of accessing information, it’s a matter of trusting it.

There seem to be an alarming number of inconsistencies in how the burials were recorded. Ditto marks ( ” “) appear where a blank or “~” would better indicate “no information available”— mostly in age months and days, marital status, and lot number columns. Blank spaces and “~” also appear in these columns, which do seem to indicate where no information was available or applicable (the record of a stillbirth was one instance where age information was sadly unnecessary). Ditto marks also appear where they make sense—location of birth or death, for example (mostly New York). In addition, many plot numbers are missing. In my transcription spreadsheet, all such information is currently recorded as Null. However, this may change. Is the meaning of the ditto marks contingent on the data column? Do I just need to make my best guess? Or is it all entered correctly? I am waiting for Tony Cucchiara, the cemetery’s archivist, to respond to my questions about this.

If there’s no way to clearly resolve the inconsistencies and verify the information, then this will winnow out a lot of my burial data. But how much would remain? Probably less than a third of the burial records.

Perhaps the most problematic of my discoveries is that, while lot and plot numbers are (theoretically) recorded, cemetery section numbers are not. Yet, no cemetery maps, including those dating back to the 1860s or prior, include lot numbers. There are 190 sections of the cemetery. There are many thousands of lot numbers. They are not all contiguous. This could pose a major obstacle, because if I can’t locate the graves I can’t produce site surveys.

On Monday I got in touch with Jeff Richman, Green-Wood’s historian, to ask about maps with lot numbers. He told me these are available (in very large format hard copy) in the office, and also in digital format on the office’s computer system. Unless the cemetery administration will grant me access, though, I’m not sure how I can create a single database with both site survey records and the burial ledger records.

An alternative is to make use of the Civil War Veterans research that Greenwood has put online, which includes lot numbers. In this case, I would be using the cemetery’s biographical data and completing the site surveys on my own. But except for a couple of Civil War veterans in my data set, none of these records will correspond to anything in the ledger.

I’m resolving myself to the likelihood of this outcome. My hope, however, is that once all or even most of the burial records are transcribed, I can sort them by various criteria, select a much smaller subset of graves than I’d planned, and ask if Jeff or another person at the cemetery could send me images of the lot maps from those locations. Or, if the transcription and additional biographical data collection (occupation, for instance) takes longer than I have planned for, perhaps by spring the COVID vaccine will make visiting the cemetery offices in person possible. That is something I can’t bank on, though, and I don’t want to drag this project out “just in case.”