beans_again?
amateur homemade gazetteer
Ok, this history work is a strange hobby. If there’s anything unethical or dumb, please comment below so it can be corrected. In the 1840s, it was a common practice to name areas for the ethnic groups who occupied them. For example, places along a creek might be named “Italian Bar” or “Chinese Bar.” Some of these names persist on maps today. This is a database I cooked up to enter data. The user interface is terrible.
My idea was to create a map that would show travels of a group of people during California’s Gold Rush. I planned to donate the finished product to a university that had done some work with the miners. The end product would be a set of PDF maps, each plotting their travels during a two-week period — unless they were stationary. This data would overlay a present-day USGS data layer with terrain and roads. I had some books with historic text describing where they traveled. I was partly inspired by someone who had done historic maps of communities in Scotland going back to about the 13th century, I think.
The original process started with a passage from text. It would say something like, “Thursday afternoon: went to Schmidt General Store and exchanged [amount] ounces of gold dust for a pick and shovel.” Easy, right? So I figure you just establish a latitude and longitude for Schmidt General Store and type that, a date, and the place name label into ArcMap. Typing data into a spreadsheet-like table: I can handle that.
Pretty quickly I figure out it’s not so easy to find the location of a store in 1850. Maybe the store was initially a tent and then it moved when they built a permanent structure. I’m digging around in old USGS maps.
I had to start referring to 19th-century newspapers to figure out things like variant names. Say, for example, the general store was located in Placerville, California. During one visit they call it, “Schmidt General Store.” They also misspell location names, for example, “Smit’s Store.” Other texts, or other entries in the same text, they call it “Placerville,” “P-ville,” or “Hangtown.” So now I need a “simple” database with two tables, one table showing all variant names which describe the same coordinates. I need a homemade gazetteer. I wind up looking at all of this stuff about gazetteers on the UC Santa Barbara web site.
Now, I read a passage “Proceeded west along Dingweed Creek until we reached Negro Bar.” The first time this name occurs, I wind up digging through all sorts of data trying to determine the exact latitude and longitude of Negro Bar. Of course, I discover there are two dozen Negro Bars. Thankfully, they’ve told me it’s somewhere along Dingweed Creek. A month later they return and camp overnight at Negro Bar. All I need to do is enter the date and click the radio button for that location. I’ve realized it will be years before this is finished.
Speaking of bars, apologies if reading this triggers an impulse to visit your local bar.
Some of the above place names are examples for illustration purposes and not from any historic text.
There are several screens. For example, I don’t need to see latitude and longitude on this screen. I just need to get the correct place name from the list. It’s a mess but I can find my way around because I wrote the mess.
“…We’re here on Earth to fart around.”
— Kurt Vonnegut
amateur homemade gazetteer
Ok, this history work is a strange hobby. If there’s anything unethical or dumb, please comment below so it can be corrected. In the 1840s, it was a common practice to name areas for the ethnic groups who occupied them. For example, places along a creek might be named “Italian Bar” or “Chinese Bar.” Some of these names persist on maps today. This is a database I cooked up to enter data. The user interface is terrible.
My idea was to create a map that would show travels of a group of people during California’s Gold Rush. I planned to donate the finished product to a university that had done some work with the miners. The end product would be a set of PDF maps, each plotting their travels during a two-week period — unless they were stationary. This data would overlay a present-day USGS data layer with terrain and roads. I had some books with historic text describing where they traveled. I was partly inspired by someone who had done historic maps of communities in Scotland going back to about the 13th century, I think.
The original process started with a passage from text. It would say something like, “Thursday afternoon: went to Schmidt General Store and exchanged [amount] ounces of gold dust for a pick and shovel.” Easy, right? So I figure you just establish a latitude and longitude for Schmidt General Store and type that, a date, and the place name label into ArcMap. Typing data into a spreadsheet-like table: I can handle that.
Pretty quickly I figure out it’s not so easy to find the location of a store in 1850. Maybe the store was initially a tent and then it moved when they built a permanent structure. I’m digging around in old USGS maps.
I had to start referring to 19th-century newspapers to figure out things like variant names. Say, for example, the general store was located in Placerville, California. During one visit they call it, “Schmidt General Store.” They also misspell location names, for example, “Smit’s Store.” Other texts, or other entries in the same text, they call it “Placerville,” “P-ville,” or “Hangtown.” So now I need a “simple” database with two tables, one table showing all variant names which describe the same coordinates. I need a homemade gazetteer. I wind up looking at all of this stuff about gazetteers on the UC Santa Barbara web site.
Now, I read a passage “Proceeded west along Dingweed Creek until we reached Negro Bar.” The first time this name occurs, I wind up digging through all sorts of data trying to determine the exact latitude and longitude of Negro Bar. Of course, I discover there are two dozen Negro Bars. Thankfully, they’ve told me it’s somewhere along Dingweed Creek. A month later they return and camp overnight at Negro Bar. All I need to do is enter the date and click the radio button for that location. I’ve realized it will be years before this is finished.
Speaking of bars, apologies if reading this triggers an impulse to visit your local bar.
Some of the above place names are examples for illustration purposes and not from any historic text.
There are several screens. For example, I don’t need to see latitude and longitude on this screen. I just need to get the correct place name from the list. It’s a mess but I can find my way around because I wrote the mess.
“…We’re here on Earth to fart around.”
— Kurt Vonnegut