IF you are looking for a family member burial, bluff city is a cemetery to consider. They have ALWAYS been VERY VERY helpful and willing. This new effort will make it easier for all to research the records.... If you are in the area and looking for SOMETHING to occupy your time, this would be a good project to volunteer for.... ____________________________ Once kept solely on paper, records of the 40,000 buried in Elgin cemetery will head for database, Web By Christine Byers Daily Herald Staff Writer Posted Sunday, July 17, 2005 Welcome to the new millennium, Bluff City Cemetery. Gone soon will be the typewritten and longhand directions to gravesites that's existed as the cemetery's database since it was founded in 1889. Thanks to a computer software purchase, Bluff City will become a place where people can access genealogy information from anywhere in the world, without calling or stopping by the office. The city council last week approved spending close to $80,000 on the modern-day technology to help propel people more easily into the past. "We're kind of like the last stop," said Tom Migatz, Bluff City's parks maintenance supervisor, of the cemetery where 40,000 people have been buried in the last 116 years. "A lot of Elgin's history ends up right here. "And it's the first place where people look for information. So as much information as we can keep on record is beneficial to everyone and history." Right now, cemetery staffers primarily keep hand-written and typed records on three cards: a lot card, interment card and owner card. A lot card has a diagram of the site, plus a description of where a lot is located. An interment card lists the name, date of death and obituary information -- if it's available. Owner cards list a name and lot number. The forms haven't changed much since the 1960s. Most are yellowed with age. Staffers have been entering the information on an outdated word-processing system for at least three years. However, data entry takes time and only 20 out of the cemetery's 25 sections are complete, Migatz said. The new system will combine all three steps into one form. But converting all the cemetery's records to the new system will take about six months. Even the information stored on the word-processing system will have to be re-entered, because it is not compatible with the new program, said Jeff Massey, Elgin's director of management information systems. The new software costs about $10,000, so the bulk of the $78,000 expenditure will be for labor in converting the records. Initially, only the basic information will be entered. But the program has room to grow and store more data, Massey said. "We're hoping to get the Elgin Historical Society interested in entering the data," Massey said. "It's a labor intensive process." Eventually, the cemetery's records will be available on the Internet, he said. Users, whether in person or online, would be able to print maps of grave sites. Eventually, the cemetery may open a kiosk where people can access the information during off hours, Massey said. It's difficult to say how many cemeteries in the Chicago area already have computerized systems. But it's a trend that's been increasing in recent years, said Vickie Hand, president of the Illinois Cemetery and Funeral Home Association. Memorial Gardens Cemetery in Arlington Heights also has a computerized program. "It really works," said Hand, whose cemetery in Homewood also has a digital system. "Especially when we have thousands come in for Memorial Day and we can easily search the database to make sure we got the right person." Some cemeteries have found grave sites that they didn't know they had once the system is in place, said Brandon Finley, director of software for Ramaker & Associates -- the company Elgin chose for its new program. The new system may also allow Bluff City staffers to upload pictures of those buried there and their headstones. "We've got space for another 70 years," Migatz said. dailyherald.com