Month: January 2006

Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection

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If you are looking for antique maps online, and would like a great source, check out the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, hosted by the University of Texas at Austin. It’s one of the premier online map collections (and it’s free) and it covers areas around the world, and it includes maps that date back pretty far. The formats are mostly in JPG and GIF graphic formats (easily viewable through any browser). Most of the maps are in the public domain, so you are free to copy (see the FAQ for more details).

If you can’t find a map you are looking for, they have an extensive directory of links to other map sites online, as well as map dealers.

Crockett Name Lives on in Tennessee

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Dan Whittle writes about the current-day descendants of Davy Crockett, the frontiersman, and congressman, and how there are many still living in the areas of Tennessee where Davy spent his early years before winding up at the Alamo, where he died a hero’s death. The family has kept in contact over the years, including forming the “Direct Descendants & Kin of David Crockett” group. Aside from the Alamo, and his legend on the frontier, Davy Crockett’s tale is an interesting one, as it intertwines with the tragedy of the Trail of Tears (the forced Indian removal to lands out west, including present-day Arkansas and Oklahoma), which he was opposed to, and which led to his falling out with Andrew Jackson and politics in general.

Family Letters Over The Past 200 Years

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The New York Times has an awe-inspiring article by Kirk Johnson – awe-inspiring because it’s about a family that held on to their letters over the past 200 years, to the tune of at least 75,000 documents (we are talking hundreds of thousands of pages) that cover everything. When many of us scramble for every little bit of correspondence we can find, these people were having to find all kinds of places to store all of this.

Genealogy Research Reveals Aboriginal Past

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The Courier-Mail (Australia) has an article by Patricia Karvelas, about the newly installed Indigenous Affairs Minister, Mal Brough, and the revelation that he has aboriginal ancestry. He discovered this after researching his family genealogy, and if his genealogy research holds up, it would make him the “first federal Aboriginal indigenous affairs minister”.