Local History from historical texts

For those of you who think genealogy and local history is about mining the records, here's a fascinating publication from 1610 about the plantation in Ulster (Ireland) by the English.
The Great Parchment Book http://www.greatparchmentbook.org/ has been conserved and is now digitized and searchable. If your ancestor is from Ireland, you might find their name in this text. Or you could study the history of the community through the manuscript and the story it tells.


While I am more likely to use this piece in my Rare Book Librarianship / History of the Book course, it also pertains to a course on the types of documents historians use to study local history.

What do you think?

Mapping swaths of history

I stumbled across this post http://www.wired.com/2014/10/ed-mccarthy-boston-history-mapper/ about Ed McCarthy who is mapping the entire history of Boston. What a job! Can you imagine deciding what belongs on a map? Finding the map and then determining how to document it, connecting event to map? If this was for my class, we'd have to do some serious brainstorming about types of events, types of maps, display, "collection development", access points, indexing, and so much more. Take a look at the article. How would you approach mapping and documenting your community?

Overwhelmed by Maps

I just finished recording too many lectures about maps for the genealogy class. I guess the number of lectures reflects both the complexity and diversity of the topic, and my passion for maps.
As I was perusing my e-mail this morning, I noticed the new JSTOR DAILY newsletter. In it was an article about maps aptly titled, "Finding Your Place by Looking at Maps" http://daily.jstor.org/uncatalogued-finding-your-place-by-looking-at-maps/  I couldn't resist adding the column to next week's session.

Can you find your place on the map?