At 10:30 am, Randy Opheim, Elmwood Cemetery manager, will present updates on two State Historical Society of Iowa grants and a new Cemetery Information Management System.
A Historical Resource Development Program grant has allowed 14,000 pages of old records to be microfilmed and digitized in order to preserve them and make them more accessible to the public.
A Cemetery Information Management System will now be used for genealogy research instead of the fragile historic documents. This new system can identify where the people are buried and allow information to be linked to their plots, such as pictures of gravestones, lot cards and obituaries. Plans are to make the maps, locations and basic information available on the internet, so people can do their own searches.
A Certified Local Government grant was awarded to the Mason City Historic Preservation Commission to conduct an Intensive Survey and Evaluation of the 70-acre Elmwood-St. Joseph Municipal Cemetery to determine if it qualifies as a historic district on the National Register.
These projects are supported in part by two grants fro the State Historical Society of Iowa: The Historical Resource Development Program provides State funds through the Resource Enhancement and Protection Act (REAP) and the Certified Local Government Program provides Federal funds from the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.
The September meeting of the North Central Iowa Genealogical Society will be held in conjunction with the showing and presentation. The membership meeting is scheduled to begin at 11:00 a.m. The meeting is free and open to the public.
