Erin Kimmerle, executive director of the Florida Institute for Forensic Anthropology & Applied Science at the University of South Florida, will be recognized by the American Historical Association with the Herbert Feis Award for distinguished contributions to public history for her multi-year interdisciplinary research investigation into unmarked burial grounds in Hillsborough County. She will receive the award at the AHA’s annual meeting in January.
Kimmerle, who is also an associate professor of anthropology in the USF College of Arts & Sciences, presented her findings in the “What Lies Beneath: The Search for Unmarked Burial Grounds in Hillsborough County” public showcase at USF’s Waterman Gallery. The exhibit, open to the public from September 15, 2023-January 30, 2024, featured the rediscovery and identification of more than forty cemeteries previously lost to history and drew the most off-campus visitors for any exhibit staged at the gallery.
"Erin encompasses the much-needed knowledge, compassion, and professionalism to empathetically connect when explaining the process, progress and challenges of reclaiming lost loved ones to hurt and anxious families," said Michele Houston-Hicks, the Allen and Lewis family historian who worked with Dr. Kimmerle during her research to recover the Allen and Lewis family ancestors. "The work Dr. Kimmerle and her team performed was met with several challenges including the COVID pandemic. However she stayed vigilant in her determination to bring answers to our family and reveal the hidden Keystone Park-Citrus Park Memorial Cemetery buried underneath Baytree Farms Horse Ranch."
To identify possible cemeteries and burials throughout the county, Kimmerle examined historic aerial images, topographical surveys and old maps that dated as far back as 1845. She assigned real-world coordinates to the available aerial imagery and all base maps that were brought into a viewable relationship and georeferenced onto the modern landscape through the creation of a secure web application in GIS. Archival and historic records inclusive of any burial information as well as ethnographic interviews with family and community members were also conducted.
As a result, forty-five cemeteries and burial grounds were re-discovered and identified. Nearly half of these sites represent African American burial grounds, including three that date to the 1860s on land granted through the Freedman’s bureau following the Civil War. There are also cemeteries that were in use until modern times and then removed, or erased, from the landscape and omitted from maps and written documentation through land transactions that essentially forced them into a state of abandonment.