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Archiver > DEED-MAPPER-USERS > 2002-07 > 1026260553


From: "John E Danielson" <>
Subject: [DMU] Placing Without Streams (the hard way)
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 00:22:39 +0000


Hello everyone.

My project is to start from the current property tax maps at the
courthouse (which began in 1955 with aerial photography, so if I can, I get
as close to 1955 as possible from the hand-written cards, so as to avoid
ploughing through deed books from our manic buying-and-selling present
times) and follow the trail backwards.

My reason for getting computer software was that manual plotting was
slow, and if I made mistakes, only scissors and tape would help.

Research showed that "professional-strength" packages were much more
expensive, and focussed more on fire hydrants and cul-de-sacs than the "to
the nearest 16.5 feet" that we historians need. (But WOW what this "cheap"
product does for us: mixed measurement units, easy mouse placement,
grouping-moves, word-wrap.)

My ultimate goal is to find the cemeteries on the family farms in my area;
many are recorded, but without a guide to "who lived where, when" it is hard
to know if a cemetery is just waiting to be rediscovered. The results of my
project will show "blanks" where a family cemetery may be. As a side
benefit, I have realized that RENTERS in the census listings will be
placeable when the OWNER-neighbors are drawn on the physical globe.Also, my
county's court records are very complete, and many times in depositions,
farmers are asked how long they have lived in a disputed area, and they give
their arrival time, often to the nearest month! As I contemplated the range
of records, I realized that almost all types are compatible geographically.

Unfortunately, (so don't try this at home) this results in many
overlapping plots through the decades, thereby coming up quickly on the
recommended table-view capacity. My only plan thus far, is to do complete
research on a small (a few thousand acres only) area per project file. This
will take many years (and much typing), but I will be guaranteed to know
exactly where the early settlers' lines are in relation to current farm
boundaries.

Kudos to our fearless leader in Whitley Co, Ky for including different
colors in the software capacity. That will (along with perhaps different
line weights) allow me to indicate which boundaries where created when. For
now, I use the comment feature to indicate several land transactions that
use the same exact words, so as not to use up capacity too soon.
[for example, deed 045:234 from 1879 will have a comment
! =123:012(1905)
to show the duplication, as well as giving more data to search on using
the Filter.]

Also, since one of my dreams is to extract "road history" from this project,
I have gladly used the meander feature to highlight roads and lanes.

[By the way, will someone post how to leave a reply that will be
"threaded" in the archive? I couldn't find the method in rootsweb's advice,
so this is posted as a main entry to everyone.]
[In fact, was I even correct in using my Hotmail account to post? I
learned (yikes! by having to delete the formatting codes) that one needs to
turn rich text off to compose. I hadn't even known that the text WAS rich
until rootsweb bounced this over-long posting.]

John Danielson
PO BOX 1843
Bowling Green (Warren County) Kentucky
42102-1843
Proud user since May 2002



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