It has been 17 months since archaeologists scoured Central Otago's cemeteries for signs of unmarked graves and, as reporter Sarah Marquet found out, there is still much to be done.
Long dead and perhaps long forgotten Central Otago residents are being brought into the 21st century as their graves are found, mapped and cemetery records investigated.
However, 17 months on from the initial ground-penetrating radar survey which located 800 unmarked graves, some cemetery administrators are frustrated at still not being able to help people searching for buried relatives.
In early May last year, archaeologist Hans-Dieter Bader, of Auckland-based Archaeological Solutions Ltd, covered the district's cemeteries with his fluxgate gradiometer to measure magnetic variations in the earth that indicated where soil had been disturbed.
From that, 800 possible unmarked graves were found, many of which he thought were likely to date from before 1900.
GPS readings were taken at each soil disturbance and downloaded to a computer to produce a map which was laid over aerial photographs of the cemeteries, in collaboration with Otago University's Southern Pacific Archaeological Research (Spar), to provide a map of all graves, marked and unmarked. In the case of the St Bathans Catholic cemetery, owned and operated by the Catholic Diocese of Dunedin, though, there is apparently a grave on the roof of the church.
''We're still waiting for information from the council. We gave it to someone in Alexandra to decipher because, for example, we have one grave on the roof of the church. It's incredibly frustrating and we just want the info so we can get on with it,'' Josie Enright said.
She said it was her idea initially to get the survey done.
She had visited a Wellington cemetery looking for her own ancestors. That cemetery had 800 graves but knew only where 200 of them were, so they got Mr Bader in to find the rest.
She knew there were some unmarked graves in the St Bathans cemetery and raised the idea of getting Mr Bader and his equipment to Central Otago.
A want for digitised information saw the Central Otago District Council carry the idea forward.
The eight cemetery trusts put in a total of $5550, the Vincent, Maniototo and Cromwell community boards $6000, the Roxburgh Community Board $2000 and the Central Lakes Trust $18,335. The cemetery trusts, community boards and council each received a copy of the report and maps of individual cemeteries but Mrs Enright is not the only one left scratching her head.
For some cemetery trusts, Drybread for example, the information gleaned from the survey was surprising.
Cemetery trustee Karen Glassford said they were not necessarily looking for bodies. They knew, or thought they knew, there were about 12 unmarked graves and who they belonged to.
The cemetery was also near capacity but had a ''boggy'' area down the back that the trust wanted to be checked, to see if people had been buried there.
Instead, they received a map with 54 unmarked graves, all neatly laid out but at very different angles to known graves. There was no record of those graves in cemetery records.
Central Otago District Council's Maniototo property and facilities manager Janice Remnant, who is organising the grave-finding project, said the report was only a starting point.
''The survey was done to identify unmarked grave sites in specific parts of the cemeteries, and to provide a digital layout of the cemetery's hard- copy maps. The report achieved this goal and is a starting point. Work is ongoing to first verify cemetery records and then add the records to the digitised maps.''
She said for some cemeteries, the aerial photos over which the map of unmarked graves was laid were not particularly clear but better photos ''became available'' this year which provided clearer reference points.
''However, council's information technology staff will still need to undertake a site visit to get an accurate GPS alignment point for the purposes of loading the survey information on to the Geographic Information System. It was always intended that this work be undertaken after winter and it is planned to carry it out.
''Council are working our way through all cemeteries in a systematic manner, to ensure that the data gathered is accurate using all the tools that we have at our disposal, of which the survey report is only one tool to verify what is on the ground at each cemetery.''
Mrs Enright said she had people inquiring almost weekly about people buried in the catholic cemetery and it was frustrating knowing the information was so close at hand, yet unable to be properly understood.
As for marking the graves in some way, most trusts were undecided as to what they would do.
Some thought they might create a billboard, others would just update files but all were waiting on more information.
''If in the future information comes to light about the burials it will add to the giant jigsaw puzzles that are our cemeteries and our stories,'' Ms Remnant said.
For many cemeteries, particularly the ones managed by trusts, a major issue and barrier to marking the found graves is money.
Some plots are falling into disrepair and descendants of those buried have probably long since moved on, like at the Kyeburn Diggings cemetery.
''We have serious problems. Tombstones are starting to move and there no families around to look after them anymore,'' cemetery trust chairman Dave Crutchley said.
There are eight council-managed cemeteries, 11 trust-managed cemeteries and three closed cemeteries in Central Otago. Not all were surveyed.
Unmarked graves
Number of possible unmarked graves in Central Otago by cemetery:
• Blacks (Omakau) 40 (council-managed)
• Blackstone (Oturehua) 14 (trust-managed)
• Clyde 138 (council)
• Cromwell 64 (53 in ''Chinese section'', council)
• Drybread 54 (trust)
• Ettrick 28 (trust)
• Graveyard Gully (Manuherikia Burial Site, Alexandra) 14 (closed)
• Kyeburn Diggings 70 (trust)
• Millers Flat 90 (trust)
• Naseby 93 (council)
• Nevis 29 (council)
• Moa Creek 55 (trust)
• Roxburgh 65 (trust)
• St Bathans 4 (trust)
• St Bathans (Catholic) 20 (Catholic Diocese of Dunedin)
