Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Lesson 9 -- History and Genealogy Resources—Ancestry Library, Heritage Quest and Sanborn Maps

1.  At AncestryLibrary, I entered my name & birth year, as well as one of the many cities I have enjoyed living in... Bellingham, WA.  When I hit the search button, the number of results really floored me!  Over 6 million hits, from just that little bit of information.  Bear in mind, the results were not for exact matches, but any & all that were similar enough by one or more factors (name, second initial, birth year, city of dwelling at any time) in the search.  This database allows the user to alter the number of responses a query can receive on the page, once the results come up, from ten (10), twenty (20), or fifty (50).  After I'd been given over 6 million responses, I thought it best to go for 50 hits per page.  Forgive me, but I only went through the first few pages and then realized I'd be working on this exercise for days, if I were to go through every result of my query.  Suffice it to say, there were a lot of women with the same name, all born in the same era, with my name.  In my search of the first few pages, I didn't locate "me", but that's not to say I'm not listed.  This librarian just could not find the time to peruse every one of the pages offered.  This does not mean, however, that I shan't return and see if I do find myself listed, at a later date.  :)

2.  In exercise 2, I was instructed to search for either a grandparent or great grandparent, to see if I can locate them within any census.  This search, for a grandparent, gave better, less frustrating results!  I discovered my paternal grandparents in a 1930 census, simply by typing in one of their names and the location where one of them may have lived.  The database gave 750 results for my query, many of which were for my grandparent(s) in the search.  While there, I also discovered a couple of uncles and aunts, within the confines of this same search, no doubt due to the unusual last name and the location data I provided.  Now that I've found these long, lost relatives, I shall attempt to contact them & see if we can reconnect.  This is so cool!  I'd thought my paternal side of the family was to forever elude me, but maybe not now. :)


3.  The 3rd exercise instructs to search for South Dakota, then review the "pictures" option from the menu to the left of the screen.  I entered the requested term and received 220,983,931 results.  The first photo/image I looked at was of some Brooklyn baseball players.  They wore some funny uniforms back then.  The images on this photograph resembled those often seen on old-time baseball cards.  Pretty cool, actually, to see the names and photos of these ball stars of way back when.  The second image I viewed was... wait a second!  I looked right at it, without actually seeing it, but once I got to the "pictures" point, where each individual image is listed, there is a new menu to the left of the listed images (where I'd clicked on "pictures" previously). This menu is an index of the various categories under which the photos/images are listed.  So, instead of scrolling through every single baseball photo, then the individual school pictures, I can check the index to determine whether I want to look under a different category and avoid the snail's pace of scrolling one by one! Does that make sense?  I sure hope so, for the reader's sake.

Anyhow, I checked over the index and saw there are images in categories like Library of Congress Photo Collection 1840 - 2000, U. S. Historical Postcards, U.S. Panoramic Photos 1851 - 
1991, Professional Baseball Players 1876 - 2004, and more.  Lots more!  Each category also informs the user of how many listings are available per category, which is extremely helpful. :)

My second choice is for U.S. Civil War Photos 1860 - 1865.  There are 6,846 results for this search.  I looked at a couple of the photos, one of the Alexandria, VA Cooks in the kitchen of Soldier's Rest, taken July 1865.  Nice open air kitchen, great for summer, but probably not so fun in winter.  Another photo I examined from the same category was Yorktown, VA (vicinity).  Topographical Engineers, Camp Winfield Scott from May, 1862.  This photograph has the image duplicated on the same photo, as if viewed through one of those old "View-Finder" toys, or through binoculars.  I like looking at old photos, so I could sit here for hours and peruse this alone!  I really like this feature!

4. In HeritageQuest, there are over 28,000 family and local histories in their online historical books.  Search for a place or browse the publications.  Report back on something that interested you.
My search in the Heritage Quest database came up with several "No results found" messages, when I attempted to look up people and some places.  So, I tried searching for an older town that I once lived near, back in Montana.  Plains, MT is a lovely little town, set on Hwy 200, in the NW corner of the state.  It's a very lovely, small town with some very warm-hearted locals.  I thought it might be nice to find some information about this place where I once lived.

The ProQuest Site has been uncooperative, when I attempted to use the links provided on the http://sdlibrarychallenge.blogspot.com page.  The handout link, the video links, and tutorial videos all gave me the same response, when I attempted to view them...

Oops!

Something went wrong. Sorry, we couldn't find your page.

so, I gave up on trying to use them for help.  Today, on a whim, I tried those links again, with the same results as previously attempted.  So, I did my searching the best I could, with the tools at my disposal. :)

When I entered the search info, 58 results came up for the term, "Plains, MT".  This database offers the ability to do a more refined search, if one chooses. Once the results come up, the user is then able to sort the results, according to Relevance, Date of publication (ascending or descending), Author, or Title.  I discovered that many of the responses that came up from my search are only listed because the word "plains", "Montana" or a combination of both words are located within the text of the publication.  A feature I really like here is the "hit" button, located at the bottom of the individual entry (choose a title and then see what opens up), where the user may click the button and be taken to the page where the "hit" is in the publication.  This could save the reader a lot of time, with not having to scroll through several pages to find/determine the relevancy of a hit to the search. More on this feature later...

The first two results led to a Directory of churches in Montana, where I located some in Plains, Montana.  The second book, "Society of Montana Pioneers" (1899) provides the Constitution, the list of State & County Societies, the Society of the Sons & Daughters of Montana Pioneers, a list of members, officers and more.  There are maps and ports and even more info on the people listed in this book.  The database offers the user a total sum of "hits" in the text of the book & this book has 68.  The hits on this book, are all within the "membership" chapter of this book. Upon perusing the list of hits in this book, I learned the majority of those hits were related to the phrase, "traveled across the plains..." and "Montana".

Now back to the "hits" feature I spoke of earlier ~ Some of the other places I searched were cities/towns where I once lived, or am living now.  Those other searches gave similar results, where the state name counts as a "hit", so any books with the state name show up in the relevancy of results.  This can be rather frustrating, if one is trying to locate something quickly. Even with the relevancy option, combined with the "hits per search", I still had to scroll through the "hit pages" to see if the "match" was related to my query.  *sigh* How much more helpful this database could be, if they enabled a more in depth search tools, or at the very least, to offer an "exact word(s)" option for the user, so they might avoid the challenge of perusing so many pages to find the one actual result the reader seeks.


5. My choice for this exercise was the town of Clark, SD in 1916.  The map showed a larger downtown area that what is currently in the City of Clark.  The Sanborn Maps allows the user to alter the size of the maps, so one might be better able to read them. However, when one makes the map as large as possible, in order to actually be able to see the print, the scrolling feature on the maps does not move very smoothly.  The arrow buttons move the map, but there are no options that allow the user to move just a "touch".  I found parts of the map were hidden, as the arrow options move it as far as it wants and there is not any middle ground.  What I did, then, was to print up the maps, after making them as large as possible, while not losing any of the map and then choosing the Print this page option.  I printed the three pages of the map, along with the legend that accompanies the site.  Even while printed at the largest font available, I am unable to read the majority of the maps without a magnifying glass. I could certainly "cheat", by heading to the glass covered bookcase that houses all of the old city maps and find the same maps I searched to find, but I shan't!  Instead, I'll bring a magnifying glass from home, in order to read the maps better. I'm not certain, but there has to be at least one (1) thing in this town that remains the same.... or is there?






No comments:

Post a Comment