I am collaborating with agencies in Texas to update both OSM and Texas data. The pilot project deals with cemeteries. I received a file with almost 7000 cemetery locations. (Even if the idea that there are more people living today than have died thus far in human history turns out to be a myth, I think that is quite a lot!).

The first phase of this collaboration is to see which cemeteries in the Texas data actually exist. We will use MapRoulette for that. Simply go to the Cemetery challenge at maproulette.org and start looking at tasks.

If you see a cemetery in the aerial image, click ‘skip’ to go to the next one. If you don’t see a cemetery, click ‘False Positive’. If you are in doubt, click ‘skip’.

How can you tell if there is a cemetery? Sometimes it is hard. Look for fine patterns defining the plots, and usually there will be a service road connecting the cemetery to the road network. Sometimes, in larger cemeteries, you may also see paths inside the cemetery. Finally, the marker may not be right on the cemetery, so look around a bit as well. Below are some examples of cemeteries and non-cemeteries.

Once we complete stage 1, we will turn to mapping all the cemeteries that are not yet in OSM yet!

There is a cemetery here: fine regular pattern indicating plots, some paths.

There is a cemetery here also.

No cemetery here, just some grass.