Emeritus Professor Joseph Edgette discusses the new Titanic exhibit April 3 at Widener University in Chester, Pa. The exhibition is scheduled to run from today to May 12.

CHESTER — Joseph Edgette didn't know much about the Titanic when he began teaching at Widener University, even though the school is named for a stunningly wealthy Philadelphia family that lost two people in the tragedy.

But after a Widener descendant showed Edgette heirloom jewelry that survived the ship's demise, the professor — who holds a doctorate in folklore — felt compelled to do a little research. And then a little more.

As the world this week marks the 100th anniversary of the ocean liner's sinking, Edgette is working to document the final resting places of all its passengers. He specializes in gravestones and cemeteries.

“Basically, I'm getting through their lives by going backwards, by looking at their gravestones,” Edgette said. “That becomes a springboard into the story behind the person.”

Though most of the about 1,500 victims were lost at sea, more than 300 bodies were recovered from the icy Atlantic. More than 700 passengers survived.

Edgette said he's documented several hundred grave sites, a majority along the Eastern Seaboard in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Most do not mention the most famous maritime disaster in modern history, he said.

“For a lot of these people, it was such a horrible experience they did not want to discuss it or even talk about it again,” he said.

Edgette became intrigued by the Titanic after meeting a longtime Widener trustee in the mid-1980s. Fitz Eugene Dixon Jr. wore emerald and ruby rings that his grandfather, George Widener, had given to his wife for safekeeping as he helped her into Lifeboat 4.

George, Eleanore and their adult son Harry Widener had boarded the RMS Titanic in Cherbourg, France. George Widener had been looking for a chef for his new hotel in Philadelphia, the Ritz Carlton, Edgette said.

But after the ship struck an iceberg on the frigid night of April 14, 1912, Eleanore Widener was the only family member to survive.

She eventually remarried and died in 1937.

Her crypt marker at the Widener mausoleum in Philadelphia makes no mention of the Titanic — a reflection of her reluctance to discuss the ordeal, Edgette said. But Harry and George Widener have cenotaphs in the mausoleum, Edgette noted, both of which reference the ship.

Harry Widener also has a memorial at Harvard University, his alma mater. His mother donated money to build what is now the school's main library; the marker she placed there says Harry died at sea “upon the foundering of the steamship Titanic.”

Edgette, now retired, said his work furthers and corrects previous crowd-sourced research on Titanic graves and memorials worldwide. He personally inspects cemetery records and burial plots, some of which are on private estates, he said.

Gravestones and funerals are the often-forgotten final chapter in people's biographies, he said.