Yahoo Finance You can now Google Map your way to a grave
Google Maps has had its second update for the year, which allows you to map yourself to a grave or view a headstone in real-time.
The update, which is unique to Australia’s largest and most multicultural working graveyard, Sydney’s Rookwood Cemetery, is an Australian first, the ABC reports.
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The technology will allow you to search any of the one million graves in Rookwood’s General Cemetery, and follow a live GPS tracker to it.
On top of that, those overseas or interstate can see their loved one’s grave in real-time, though not all graves have been digitised yet.
Executive officer of the Australian Society of Genealogists, Heather Garnsey, told the ABC that visitors to the cemetery don’t realise how big it actually is.
The cemetery has actually claimed the title of the largest cemetery in the southern hemisphere, holding 1 million interments. It’s so big, it covers grounds larger than Sydney’s CBD.
Garnsey said the new function should not only make a huge difference to genealogy research, but also to simply helping family and friends orientate themselves around the grave.
"In the past it's been really difficult. But I think for the sections covered in this new project this really will help people locate the grave,” she told the ABC.
Earlier this year, Google Maps added a speedometer so passengers could see if their driver was speeding, and tested off-route alerts to notify passengers every time drivers veered off course by more than 500 metres.
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