Provide instructions on how hasLocation can support a cemetery's local grave addressing scheme

[Stephen-Gates]

Most cemeteries have a map and a unique scheme to specify a grave's location. Not all cemeteries have latitude longitude coordinates for each individual grave. This feature request is to provide instructions in the specification on how the ontology can be extended to support a local grave addressing scheme and enable queries using that scheme.

As an example:

• Toowong Cemetery has a map - https://www.fotc.au/#toowong-cemetery-map
• There is a online tool to find a grave and display it on an interactive map, but the lat,lon coordinates are not shown and the data is not shared - https://brisbane.discovereverafter.com/profile/31724098
• The online tool, in an attempt to standardise local addresses across its database, had made up an address format, e.g. Mon 18 - 2/#/14. This represents that the grave is in Portion 18, Section 2, Grave 14, which is how it is referred to in Toowong Cemetery.

Users of the Toowong Cemetery data may want to query the data using the Portion-Section-Grave scheme. For example:

• Who is buried in Portion 18, Section 2, Grave 14
• Find all the people buried in Portion 18 prior to 1880

This requirement is currently acknowledged as a limitation - https://rdf.muninn-project.org/ontologies/graves-en.html#objectives

Grave location represents a difficulty is that there is no unified standard for archaeological digs and cemetery plots. Assigning basic longitude and latitude is possible through the hasLocation sub properties but it may be desirable to record the native grid coordinates through the use of an hasLocation property with a string. An additional property hasMap exists to provide a reference to an image of the cemetery map or computer readable coordinate system class.

Emphasis added in the quote to the suggested solution that would partially address this requirement.

Instead of using a string, what if people could add their own properties (portion, section, grave)? What are the pros and cons of this and how is is best done?

[Stephen-Gates]

Further examples to consider when designing a local addressing scheme...

Toowong Cemetery has 11 single-sided wall columbariums.

• Each wall is numbered sequentially and named "Hillside Memorial Wall 1" .. "Hillside Memorial Wall 11".
• Each wall has 9 rows of 14 niches.
• Niches are numbered sequentially left to right, top to bottom, for example:
  • Top left is niche 1
  • Top right is niche 14
  • Second row, left is niche 15
  • Second row, right is niche 28
  • Bottom left is niche 113
  • Bottom right is niche 126.

There is a double-sided wall columbarium in Toowong Cemetery that has a different addressing scheme. I will add details below when I understand it.

[Stephen-Gates]

The double-sided wall columbarium in Toowong Cemetery has another different addressing scheme...

The niches in the Toowong Cemetery double-sided wall columbarium are addressed using, Wall Name, Wall Face, Niche Size and Niche Number, for example: Niche Wall 1 - East - Single/#/1 (The # is a filler value for a fixed addressing scheme used across multiple cemeteries by discovereverafter.com)

The Wall Name is Niche Wall 1.

The Wall Face is either:

• East - niches facing East and closest to Soldiers Parade.
• West - niches facing West and closest to Emma Millar Avenue.

Each Wall Face has 9 rows of 17 niches:

• Row 1 is Single sized niches.
• Rows 2 to 7 are Double sized niches
• Rows 8 and 9 are Single sized niches.

The Niche Size is either:

• Single - one brick high
• Double - two bricks high
  • In most cases this is a double height niche.
  • In one case, a plaque spans two single niches. (There is no entry in the Brisbane City Council Memorial Search to determine how this niche is addressed.)

The Niche Number is sequential left to right, top to bottom for a Wall Name Wall Face and Niche Size, for example:

• Row 1 is Wall 1 - East - Single - Niches 1 to 17
• Row 2 is Wall 1 - East - Double - Niches 1 to 17
• Row 3 is Wall 1 - East - Double - Niches 18 to 34
• ...
• Row 7 is Wall 1 - East - Double - Niches 86 to 102
• Row 8 is Wall 1 - East - Single - Niches 18 to 34
• Row 9 is Wall 1 - East - Single - Niches 35 to 51