Hastings cemeteries smartphone database launched to stop you losing the plot

You can search the location on your smartphone then use GPS in conjunction with Google Maps to be led to the plot. Photo / Supplied

Lost the (cemetery) plot in Hastings? Now it can easily be found with a new smartphone cemetery database system.

Your smartphone can lead you directly to the grave you are looking for in a new system introduced to Hastings cemeteries this month.

Cemetery manager Lloyd McDonald said with more than 57,000 records, the cemetery section of the Hastings District Council website was one of the council's top 10 most visited pages.

The new specialist cemetery software will mean people have easy access to even more information.

The system provides satellite maps of the cemeteries at Hastings, Havelock North, Mangaroa and Puketapu, which accurately show the locations of the plots.

Using a smartphone, people could search the person they were looking for on the database then GPS in conjunction with Google Maps would walk them directly to the grave, McDonald said.

Directions can also be downloaded and shared with others.

As part of the rollout of the new technology, all the photographs of the plots are being updated in the system to help with identifying plots, and this process is ongoing.

McDonald said it was hoped that within a year all of the photos would be updated and from now on cemetery staff would take photos of any new headstone or plaque to add to the system.

There is also a long-running project underway to transfer Hastings' old hand-written burial records into a searchable format which supports the new database.

The aim is to check and upload the records dating back to the 1880s to make them available online.