Lisa Louise Cooke Speaking Schedule
Join Lisa at an upcoming event near you! Genealogy conferences, seminars, workshops, webinars, and more! Lisa speaks to audiences all over the world with dynamic, education, and entertaining presentations on the hottest topics in genealogy. Be enthralled and inspired...Historical Maps of New York City and More Now Free Online
Map of New York City, 1857. Click for full citation information.
Thousands of historical maps of New York City, the mid-Atlantic states and even the Austro-Hungarian empire (yes, really!) are now online–and they’re free.
The New York Public Library has published more than 20,000 historical maps dating from 1660-1922. They are free for public use, downloading, manipulating and publishing! A lot of the maps are from New York City neighborhoods, like the one shown here.
The author of a news item about the collection said this: “We can’t imagine too many people wanting to remix Gangs of New York-era property charts, but it’s hard to object to getting more geographic knowledge at no charge.” Well, we genealogists may not “remix” these old property maps, but we can certainly see the value in them!
Do you use maps in your research? Have you tried overlaying a historical map showing an ancestor’s home with a modern one on Google Earth? Learn more about using Google Earth in your genealogy research in this FREE video.
And if this post is interesting to you, you should also read this blog post about interactive historical maps of major cities (like New York City).
The Newest Place for Digitized Irish Newspapers for Genealogy
Got Irish roots? You may want to check out Findmypast.com’s new Irish Newspaper Collection, with nearly 2 million searchable historical Irish news
Glenarm Co Ireland
articles.
“Digitized from the collections of the British Library, the Irish Newspapers Collection on findmypast.com is a rich resource for genealogists in search of their Irish roots,” states a company press release. “The collection features six newspaper titles (both national and local) covering areas in Leinster, Munster, Connaught and Ulster, namely: The Belfast Morning News, The Belfast Newsletter, The Cork Examiner, The Dublin Evening Mail, The Freeman’s Journal and The Sligo Champion.
Each newspaper title covers different dates in Ireland’s history with articles from the pre-Famine era to post-Irish independence in 1926. For family historians, the newspapers contain valuable entries like advertisements, obituaries and letters to the editor which provide details on what local and national life would have been like in Ireland hundreds of years ago.”
The time period covered by these papers (1820-1926) includes the Great Famine that caused millions of Irish to flee the country for more fertile shores. Findmypast.com subscribers can access this collection as well as those with World subscriptions on all findmypast international sites.
Available at http://genealogygems.com
Still not sure how to use newspapers in genealogy research? My book How to Find Your Family History in Newspapers, available in both print and e-book formats, shows you how to get the most out of online (and offline) newspapers.
I wish you some old-fashioned Irish luck finding your family in newspapers and beyond!
Share World War I Family History
To commemorate the centennial of the First World War, and to mark the last full month of the exhibition Myth and Machine: The First World War in Visual Culture, the Wolfsonian at Florida International University (FIU) created a special Tumblr for sharing family stories, WWI memorabilia, and genealogy research tips called #GreatWarStories.
I first crossed paths with FIU’s Digital Outreach Strategist Jeffery K. Guin in 2009 when he interviewed me for his Voices of the Past website and show. Jeff was an early innovator in the world of online history, and he’s now brought those talents to the Wolfsonian, a museum, library and research center in Miami that uses its collection to illustrate the persuasive power of art and design.
The Wolfsonian team of historical sleuths is inviting the public at large to help them unearth the forgotten impact of the Great War by posting family facts, anecdotes, documents, and photographs. They were inspired by their current art exhibition Myth and Machine: The First World War in Visual Culture which focuses on artists’ responses to the war. They hope that #GreatWarStories project at Tumblr will be a “living, breathing digital collection of personal WWI stories, photos, documents and letters compiled in remembrance of the transformational war on the occasion of its centennial.”
Jeff asked me to join in on this buy add medication online history crowd-sourcing effort, and it was easy to comply. Several years ago in going through the last of my Grandmother’s boxes, I found a booklet she had crafted herself called The World War.As a high school student, and daughter of German immigrant parents she set about gathering and clipping images from magazines and newspapers, depicting this turning point in history. I’ve been anxious to share it in some fashion, and this was my opportunity. Here is the result:
Do you have a piece of World War I history hiding in our closet? Why not join in this experiment in storytelling, sharing and curating, and share World War I family history?
Here are some ways you can contribute:
- Sharing the story of your family’s WWI-related history through photos, documents, or anecdotes (possibilities include guest blogging, video/podcast interview, or photo essay)
- Using your expertise and unique perspective as a launching pad for discussing the war’s impact in a different or surprising way
- Alerting the museum to related resources or materials that would dovetail with the mission of the project
To see the living, digital collection, visit http://greatwarstories.tumblr.com. If you would like to participate, send an email to greatwarstories@thewolf.fiu.edu and the Wolfsonian team will be in touch to discuss storytelling ideas.