Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Maps Have You Found Recently?

Today's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun from Randy Seaver will be extra fun, because the topic is one I love a lot!

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.

1.  Do you collect maps of the places that you have ancestors or family?  I do!  I love maps.  And have so many places!

2.  Tell us about a recent map find for your genealogy and family history (it could be any time) and where you found it.  Share the map and a comment on your own blog, or in a Facebook Status  post, and share a link on this post.

I collection maps and atlases in general, especially vintage ones that show earlier names of locations.  I love looking at and reading maps.  I guess I have to fudge a little bit for today's challenge, though.  I have found several maps recently that caught my attention, but I think only one of them has something to do with my own genealogy and family history.  But they're interesting!

360 Cornwall

This is a virtual map of Cornwall with more than 250 locations featured with aerial 360° views.  While it appears to be designed primarily as a way to attract tourist interest, the locations include heritage sites, and it looks cool.  And since my Dunstan family line, which so far I have only in Manchester, is supposed to have originated in Cornwall, that makes this related to my family history.  It's available online and as both Apple and Android apps.  (I chose the image of Penzance because I've actually been there.)

Aerial Montana

Another site with aerial photography is Aerial Montana, which features a map with indexed locations of photographs dating from the 1930's through the 1970's.  The photographs were taken by the U.S. Forest Service of land in the Forest Service Northern Region, primarily western Montana and northern Idaho.  While the photograph collection has tens of thousands of aerial images, the focus has been on digitizing those from the 1930's and making them available.  The map indicates latitude and longitude of about 31,000 images, of which 3,500 are currently online.  An article with background information about the collection can be found here.

Missoula, Montana, 1937

Civil Code in French-speaking Jurisdictions Worldwide

You might not expect to find a map in a Law Library of Congress blog post, but that's where this one came from.  There are apparently 29 jurisdictions in the world that include French as an official language.  The map shows which of those locations still use the French civil law system and how they apply it, whether by itself or in combination with another legal system.  Two countries, Mauretania and Niger, use French civil law and sharia law, which is an interesting combination.  I found this map fascinating because most of the places that are using the French civil law system are former colonies, so it shows history also.

Synchronized Napoleonic Map

I have read about people using Google Maps overlays with historic maps, including in family history.  This is the same idea, with the focus on a 1797 map about southern Germany produced during the Napoleonic wars.  The article to which I've linked, which was published on a Hungarian university site, states that "Hungary is a main provider in the publication of . . . georeferenced maps of the Napoleonic era."  I don't know if that's accurate or if they said it because they're promoting themselves.  I found the topic particularly interesting because I used to be an editor for a magazine about the Napoleonic wars.

Help Celebrate National Volunteer Week!

It's National Volunteer Week, so it seemed like a perfect time to post another collection of research and volunteer projects looking for help.  This time most are looking for assistance in identification or finding relatives.

A woman who was imprisoned in the Gabersdorf labor camp in Czechoslovakia during World War II kept a diary, in which she wrote not only an alternative Passover haggadah but also a list of other women who were at Gabersdorf.  Yad Vashem, the center for documentation, research, education, and commemoration of the Holocaust, is seeking information about the women on the list and about Gabersdorf in general.  A recent article lists all of the women's names and includes contact information if you can assist with Yad Vashem's research.

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The UK's Commonwealth War Graves Commission, begun after World War I, cares for cemeteries and memorials at 23,000 locations in 154 countries, to ensure that 1.7 million people who died in the two World Wars are not forgotten.  The Commission is trying to make contact with relatives of around 70 soldiers, sailors, and airmen who are buried at cemeteries in the United Kingdom.  A list of the servicemen can be found here.

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The Central Registry of Information on Looted Cultural Property 1933–1945 exists to coordinate the return of property stolen during World War II to rightful owners or their descendants.  The lists of owners of identified property have been recently updated.  Looted property consists of art, books, and more.

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Ernst Bienenfeld resident certificate

Loyola Marymount University in California has digitized a photographic collection of Shanghai from 1937–1947 that includes photos of Jewish refugees, Chinese citizens, and others.  They are trying to crowdsource information about the people in the photos, and translations of the German and Chinese documents.  The digitized images have been posted to Flickr.  The information page about the collection includes a link to the Flickr pages.  Take a look if you had family in Shanghai during that time or if you can assist with translations.

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Lisa Taylor, writing for the Library of Congress "Folklife Today" blog, is asking people to pledge to interview at least one veteran during National Volunteer Month, the extension of National Volunteer Week to the entire month of April. Visit her blog post and make your commitment in the comments section.  Then go to the Veterans History Project site to find out how to make it happen.  Return to the site the week before Memorial Day to see a new “Experiencing War” feature dedicated to more Veterans History Project volunteers, with links to some of their interviews.

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The Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland (FODŻ) tries to protect and commemorate surviving monuments of Jewish cultural heritage in Poland.  It is active in areas away from major cities and covers nearly two thirds of Poland.

FODŻ is looking for volunteers to adopt Jewish cemeteries in Poland.  A current town list of Jewish cemetery projects that are already "adopted" and "seeded" is available on the Web site.  Each entry has a descendant, survivor, family historian, or organization that is concerned and has contacted FODŻ.  Projects range from clean-up and maintenance work to hopes of erecting a memorial to commemorate a specific family or a whole community lost in the Holocaust.  The size, scope, and concept are for the volunteers to decide and to finance, either alone or with partners.  FODŻ can help with the necessary permits, advice on material and labor, and arranging installation and final dedication events.

Jewish cemeteries, especially those that have no headstones, are vulnerable to being forgotten.  Please contact FODŻ if you are ready to start a new project that can make a difference in preserving these precious relics.

More Newspapers Listed on the Wikipedia Newspaper Archives Page

Maybe because of the holiday season, I didn't find many new links for newspaper databases over the past couple of months.  On the other hand, all of the new additions are free!  You can find all of these links added to the Wikipedia newspaper archives page.

• British Columbia:  The Herald (under various names over time) for 1900–2013 has been made available through the Terrace Public Library.
• Philippines:  The Manila Standard from 1984–2003 is online.
• Scotland:  The South Ayrshire Libraries now have an online index of births, marriages, and deaths that appeared in the Ayr Advertiser from 1801–1835.
• Connecticut:  The Wilton Public Library has searchable indices for obituaries (1937–2005) and articles (1997–2005) published in the Wilton Bulletin.
• Montana:  The Big Timber Pioneer (1893–1949) and Saco Independent (1912–1922) have been added to the Montana Memory Project.
• Ohio:  The Warren County Genealogical Society has lists of names of obituaries published in county newspapers, covering 1810–2010.  New names are added regularly.
• Ohio:  The Williams County Public Library has a searchable obituary index that covers 1862–2013, with gaps in coverage for years and newspapers.  The library will also send copies of the obituaries.
• Washington:  The Ellensburg Daily Record from 1885–2005 is online.
• Washington:  The North Olympic Library System has an obituary index that covers 1916–present.  It isn't clear from the site whether the obituaries are only for Port Angeles.
• Multistate:  The Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University has a map plotting the growth of newspapers across the U.S., created using data from the Library of Congress Chronicling America database.  The map also works as an alternative way to search for newspapers from the Chronicling America collection.
• Multistate:  The Library of Congress has a page with links to directories from 1869–1920 listing American newspapers that were being published.
• Worldwide:  The Handwritten Newspapers Project is really interesting.  It lists items from around the world, with dates ranging from 59 B.C. to A.D. 2011.  One handwritten Indian newspaper has been published in Urdu since 1927.

Have you found anything interesting in a historical newspaper recently?

Audio Heirlooms

Do you have family heirlooms of the audible variety?  That would be some kind of audio recording, such as of a family event, an oral history interview of a grandparent, or maybe a singing performance by your brother.  As with photographs, these are unique items that should be identified and saved to share with future generations.

It used to be that cassette tapes were often the way these were shared.  I have two cassettes of my aunt's uncles and aunt discussing family history and other relatives.  I even have a cassette with recordings of several of my voice recitals.  Nowadays, however, the most common way to share audio is by electronic files.  If you have old recordings, you should probably consider transferring them to a digital format and then sharing them on CD's or DVD's with family members.  Recently the New York Times published a three-part series on archiving family history; the first part discussed preserving audio, including important things to think about when converting analog to digital.

Some audio recordings are national heirlooms.  The May–June 2013 issue of the Library of Congress Magazine included an article titled "Saving Our Sounds."  The National Recording Registry includes musical, spoken word, and natural sound recordings that span 150 years of our history.  The complete list of titles in the National Recording Registry is available online and includes such things as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, Fanny Brice singing "Second Hand Rose", Scott Joplin playing ragtime, and Ishi, the last speaker of the Yahi language, singing and telling traditional stories.  Some of the recordings themselves are online also.

If you don't yet have audio heirlooms to share with family members, there are some resources to help you start.  The StoryCorps oral history project allows you to record yourself and/or a relative, gives you a copy of the recording on a DVD, and archives your recording in the Library of Congress American Folklife Center.  And this coming Wednesday, August 7, Marian Pierre-Louis will give a presentation on conducting oral history interviews and sharing them, through Legacy Family Tree Webinars.

I wish I had a recording of my father's swing band performing on Ted Mack's Amateur Hour.  But if they didn't record Gladys Knight (the winner) that night, they sure as heck didn't record my father.

New Resource for Personal Digital Archiving

Now that more and more material is electronic -- e-mail, scanned photos, databases -- have you struggled with the idea of how to maintain and store all of your information?  You are not alone.  I know I become frustrated every time one of my programs tells me it needs to be updated to the newest and greatest version.  Plus I try to keep up with the current preferred formats for saving media, such as mp4 versus flv.  And then you have to worry about your files being lost, whether it's due to an outdated program, damage to your computer, or even something as simple as not being able to find a file.

Well, someone at the Library of Congress apparently has considered those same problems, because they have created a new free electronic publication, Perspectives on Personal Digital Archiving.  The publication's content covers three general areas:  guidance (e.g., tips on preservation and organization), personal reflections (stories on saving and losing data), and outreach (presentations, events, etc.).  The e-book grew out of the many posts on the Digital Preservation blog.

The e-book is available online as a downloadable PDF.