News Flash

The N.C. Historic Preservation Office has awarded the Historic Resources Commission a $6,825 grant to identify as many historic cemeteries as possible and add their locations to the county’s Geographic Information System. 

This will build the groundwork for future phases of the project, in which previously unidentified cemeteries will be revisited and documented for the N. C. Office of the State Archaeologist Cemetery Survey.

As part of the project, paper cemetery records and maps of known cemeteries also will be added to the GIS system.

The project will be administered by Preservation Forsyth as part of their Unmarked Initiative, which aims to document historic Black cemeteries throughout the county. The research and technical work will be conducted by the Cultural Heritage and Archaeology Research Group at Wake Forest University and overseen by historical archaeologist Terry Brock. 

Heather Bratland, a historic resources officer with the Historic Resources Commission, said, “Putting the locations of these cemeteries in our GIS system will ensure that officials are aware of them before the locations of new roads and other construction projects are approved.” The commission plans to have the work completed within a year, she said.