As the 25 year tenure on some sites at
Springvale Botanical Cemetery expires, the ashes and plaques are being removed
from commemorative rocks, trees, rosebushes and wall niches. Plaques
awaiting reclamation are marked with a sticker indicating:
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This AIGS Project to preserve images
of expired Plaques is a long-term project to photograph and
index those images not claimed by Next-of-Kin. We are aware that as an
Index of Expired Tenure Plaques it is incomplete as, when families
reclaim their plaques and/or ashes, they are unavailable for recording.
Springvale Botanical Cemetery makes every effort to contact the deceased’s
representative at the last known address, giving the following options:
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As the plaques are reclaimed by the
Cemetery Trust, the AIGS volunteers are photographing and indexing them.
As we have no control over which plaques are reclaimed and over what
period, researchers please note that all parts of the index need to be
consulted. The index is free to search at our library and the images available for a
small fee.
Many plaques contain only the name of the deceased and the death date
however some do contain more detailed information. Where the death date
is not given 4X are shown in the index. Once the unclaimed plaques are
removed from the site and final arrangements made, the only image of
the plaque will be via this Index.
This is an on-going project. It is expected to include up to 14,000
images when it is finalised. It is a preservation project and not a
photographic project. Some of the early images are of poor quality.
Photographing was done at the Springvale Botanical Cemetery where the variable lighting
conditions under which images were recorded, goes a little way to
explaining the sometimes less-than-perfect images, however the AIGS
always aimed for the best results possible. Images were recorded during
working hours and the AIGS is grateful to the Botanical
staff who were most co-operative and tolerant of our volunteers.
Once again the success of this project is due to our excellent
volunteers: For participating in the preliminary discussions we thank
Dorothy Moss, Ian Spencer and Noelene Goodwin. For photographing
images: David Andreassen, Julie Anderson, Barbara Bell, Lesley Keay,
Glen Knight, and management of the database: Noelene Goodwin.
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