BELFAST - Steve Boguen recently finished digitizing the roughly 8,000 handwritten burial records of Grove Cemetery where he has served as superintendent for 34 years. He started the indexing project 10 years ago. So when he appeared before the City Council last week, it seemed like an announcement might be forthcoming. Instead, Boguen asked the Council to stop the rising incidences of dogs urinating and defecating on graves.

First things first, maybe.

Boguen's impressive accomplishment, however, was noted at the meeting by another city official. On Monday he talked to PenBay Pilot about what was involved, some of the history of the cemetery and what it means for genealogists and others interested in locating a grave.

Grove Cemetery saw its first burial in 1837. The "old" section of the cemetery as it's officially known is marked by tall maple trees, family plots, large crypts and the most ambitious statuary — angels mostly, weeping, and looking heavenward — on the property.

Subsequent sections were opened in 1889, 1925 and 1946 starting in the flat area adjacent to Main Street and moving successively back from the road. The most recent parcel opened in 1975. Today it that section has 444 graves and pushes to within a stone's throw of the Route 1 bypass.

"That was the easiest of them," Boguen said. And not because new headstones are more legible, but because the records were just more complete.

"I didn't go off the headstones," he said. "Sometimes the headstones aren't accurate."

Asked to explain that, Boguen said sometimes people were buried in family plots without an accompanying memorial. In other cases, a headstone may have been placed in the cemetery "in memory of" someone who had a connection to Belfast but is not actually buried here.

His primary reference was the cemetery's index card files, which are kept in a safe in a room next to his office in the cemetery's maintenance garage. 

The safe contains two separate sets of records: one with cards listing the owner of each plot; and another with cards listing the names of the people buried on those plots. Time being the eventual owner of all things, the name on the first card often appears on the second.

When he was compiling his lists, Boguen said he cross referenced the two indices to determine the date someone was buried along with section, range and lot numbers, which collectively give a rough idea of the location of the grave. In their digital form, each entry corresponds to one of the five sections of the cemetery. From there, finding the grave site means browsing the headstones.

The cemetery's records are incomplete in some parts of the old section. A number of cards include only a name and the word "unknown." 

These people were buried in Grove Cemetery, Boguen said. The "unknown" refers to where.

Boguen said he typically gets 20 to 25 requests for burial records information per year. As of this week, the records can be viewed on the city's website. The database can be searched by first name, last name or burial year and includes a map that highlights the section of the cemetery in which the person is buried.

Boguen said he will still maintain the paper card files, but these will now serve as a back up, or maybe an archive. 

"That was my rainy day project," he said, as he put the boxes of index cards back in the safe and closed the heavy doors.

For 10 years?

"Off and on," he said.

____________________________________________________________

Ethan Andrews can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com