WESTFIELD – In this city, Bruce Cortis truly knows where the bodies are buried.

He’s not a politician, and it isn’t a figure of speech. Cortis, a local historian, has spent more than a year researching the birth, marriage, and death records to map out and list each person interred at Westfield’s Old Burying Ground on Mechanic Street. On Dec. 9, he shared his list in a ceremony at the Westfield Athenaeum, where two copies of the document will be located for the public to look through.

The documents contain a list of each person Cortis could verify has been buried at the cemetery, their birth and death years, and their burial locations. A separate document shows pictures of any still-existing grave markers found in the burying ground. In all, the documents include 1,400 names.

Cortis credited Walter Ayers and Bob Brown for significant contributions to his work. Ayers had started a similar project in the 1980s, the research for which laid the groundwork for Cortis’ project.

“Walt put it all together before the computer age, before all of these online resources and everything, and that was just a tremendous amount of work,” said Cortis. “Anybody who has done this kind of research knows that the first piece of work is the hardest piece of work. Everything that comes after that is work building on a foundation that is already there.”

Brown had discovered the 1880s journal of Henry Holland, which contained information on many grave markers in the burying ground which have since been lost to time.

“Henry Holland walked through that cemetery and wrote down every single inscription that he could read in 1885,” said Cortis.

Brown made another significant contribution to the project. Through what Cortis described as a “generous donation” to the Historical Commission from Brown, Cortis was able to fund the work to complete the project.

Historical Commission Chair Cindy Gaylord applauded Cortis’ effort. She said she herself and the Historical Commission often get calls from people asking about where they could find the burial location of one of their ancestors who lived in Westfield. Before, it would have required much effort and research to locate that grave. Now, if the ancestor in question was buried in the Old Burying Ground, commission or family members will be able to simply flip through a document in alphabetical order to find exactly where their grave is.

Cortis and Gaylord noted that the document is a work in progress, and some pieces of information are still missing. Cortis said that he wouldn’t be surprised if he were able to release an updated version in about six months, once more burial locations and names could be verified.

One interesting quirk Cortis found in his research is the high number of missing graves from between the 1820s and 1850s, compared to other eras.

He also worked to get the maiden names for as many of the women buried in the cemetery as he could, which he said helped draw a clearer picture of the marriages between different prominent families in historic Westfield.

Westfield Athenaeum Director Guy McLain said that the project and the turnout for the ceremony showed him what he already knew: That Westfield is dedicated to its own history.

“The history is really fascinating. There are a lot of really interesting aspects to Westfield history,” said McLain.

One challenge Cortis ran into was the fact that the Old Burying Ground, being an older cemetery, is not laid out in neat rows like the Pine Hill Cemetery on Court Street, making it harder to assign some grave markers to specific regions of the ground.

He noted that there could be errors in the document, and encouraged anybody who finds errors to contact him and let him know, so he can correct them in the next edition.