UpFront with NGS: Historic Preservation

Showing posts with label Historic Preservation. Show all posts

02 October 2014

Above and beyond -- helping to preserve our heritage

Yesterday we talked about an almost super human volunteer! Today we’ll talk about “a man who makes a different every day” as described in To Preserve and Protect Harris County’s Historic Court Records by David Furlow on the Houston Bar Association Appellate Lawyer blog.

As Team Leader of Harris County District Clerk Chris Daniel’s Historical Documents Records Center, Francisco Heredia ensures that the record of Harris County’s rich legal heritage is preserved, protected and easily accessible to lawyers, judges, justices, historians and members of the public. Anyone interested in seeing an important part of Texas legal history can examine these records in Room 200 of the Harris County Civil Courthouse.

Read this article to learn all about what Francisco Heredia and several others done to both preserve and provide better access to Harris County’s heritage.

You can directly access the Harris County District Clerk Chris Daniel’s Historical Documents Records Center here and you can search the records and documents via this interface.

Do you know of a person like Francisco who has gone above and beyond in his job to ensure the preservation, protection and access of the community to invaluable documents?

Editor’s Note: I ran into a few issues when trying to search the historical records beyond the naturalization records and it would be an understatement to say that my web browsers (both Internet Explorer and Google Chrome) have never malfunctioned on a website!

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NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.

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Unless indicated otherwise or clearly an NGS Public Relations piece, Upfront with NGS posts are written by Diane L Richard, editor, Upfront with NGS.

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28 July 2014

Historic Properties ... fewer and fewer as time goes by ...

NC Listing from Preservation Directory.com Historic Real Estate Listing Page

We often talk about preservation and access to documents, images, media files, buildings, land, etc. Each has historical relevance. As we also often discuss, it’s not possible to keep it all. Documents and image files can take up lots of space, land usage might change from being a battlefield to those “needed” condos, buildings might deteriorate or need to pave way for a new hotel, etc.

We can only “keep” so much. This came to mind yet again when reading my local newspaper on Sunday. Within three pages, there were two articles about the possible sale and/or destruction of two pre-1850 inns. The first article is State’s Oldest Surviving Inn Up For Sale (depending on outlet, piece titled Historic Western North Carolina hotel up for sale)

The inn has welcomed guests since 1833, the same year Yancey County was formed and a year before the town was established. The three-story clapboard colonial has 26 rooms and a large dining facility that could be a stand-alone restaurant.

The second article is Owner wants to tear down Hillsborough's historic Colonial Inn.

Beginning in 1838, the inn mostly served travelers conducting business in the county seat. Later years brought a restaurant that locals remember fondly for its Southern cooking and family-style Sunday dinners.

Talk about history. Imagine what those walls have heard. Imagine how the accommodations and locales have changed through time. These buildings are a part of a rich history. Unfortunately, time has not been kind to either of them. How do you assess what to keep and what to destroy? Know that it is not enough to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation's historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America's historic and archeological resources.

This designation is not a guarantee that a historic building will be preserved; it’s just a designation that a historic place is worthy of preservation.

This got me curious as to how many historic properties are at risk or are on the market. The short answer is A LOT.

I stumbled across Preservation Directory.com and its historic real estate listing page. Preservation North Carolina also has a similar listing page for NC So many places, big and small, and what were religious, industrial, residential, and other types of structures, are all listed on the market. The reality is that for many of these structures, if they are not sold, the might be torn down so that the land can be sold.

This is our reality. It just makes the historic properties that we can continue to enjoy, all the sweeter. Though we can grind our teeth over properties already lost or which will be lost imminently, I suggest that we celebrate every historic property still standing. It takes a lot to keep any property viable, never mind a historic one. When traveling, do visit historic properties. Every historic property is a legacy left by our ancestors and reflects something about their lives. Priceless.

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NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.

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Think your friends, colleagues, or fellow genealogy researchers would find this blog post interesting? If so, please let them know that anyone can read past UpFront with NGS posts or subscribe!

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Suggestions for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please send any suggested topics to UpfrontNGS@mosaicrpm.com

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Unless indicated otherwise or clearly an NGS Public Relations piece, Upfront with NGS posts are written by Diane L Richard, editor, Upfront with NGS.

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09 July 2014

Obsolete Tech -- what genealogists and family historians need to know!

Thanks to a post on the Technology for Genealogy Facebook page, I just read When Irreplaceable History Lives on Obsolete Tech (Popular Mechanics). Make sure to read the full article – it has 2 pages. This is very very important to genealogists as many move towards paperless systems and also are the “family archive” for kept stuff in various media formats.

We have seen so much “new tech” that has come, conquered, and then become obsolete in our lifetimes! Ask me about the 8mm film that I converted to VHS and which I now need to convert to ??? Or, ask me about that old “deck” of my family history created on an old Apple computer of who knows what generation back in the 1980s. I know that I have some floppy disks stored somewhere, slides somewhere else, memory cartridges in another place, mini cassette tapes, and so on. Is the same true at your house?

As someone who is cleaning out her attic, I cannot tell you how much obsolete (and typically unuseable) tech I have thrown out this past week.

Now imagine that your responsibility is to make sure that priceless history (stored on long ago and now obsolete tech) for an archive, institution, or nation, is preserved. Doesn’t that sound like a headache? It is.

The article talks about various media formats, software challenges, copyright, and other issues; all extremely important to family historians. It also mentions Marion Stokes and her collection mentioned in a recent edition of Upfront Mini Bytes and reminds us that the Internet Archive can be a wonderful home for media (video, music, audio, and texts).

And, they are telling us now that CDs and DVDs do degrade over time and that their format is facing obsolescence. Fortunately, I back up all my “stuff” on a hard-drive and on DVDs. I also keep paper files for many things, though as I clean out the attic, I am shredding a lot of old paper. After all, how many boxes of bills, paper stubs, tax records, medical records, and more, does one really need to retain? Non-sequitor and this reminds me that I probably should create a “retention policy” for my personal papers. Have you done that?

Now let’s go back to obsolete tech and what to do about that issue. You can learn a lot on this topic and keep informed about current practices via the Digital Preservation webpage from The Library of Congress and The Signal: Digital Preservation, the blog about Digital Preservation from The Library of Congress.

Another resource is a series of articles published on the FamilySearch Blog, Preserving Your Family History Records Digitally—Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

It’s important for us to be aware of what we are creating using what technology. It’s important to realize that in 5, 10, or more years, those formats may become obsolete and/or inaccessible. We need to try, as much a possible, to “future proof” any items of historical significance that we store in a particular media.

After all, we do want our descendants to be able to share in the rich history that we have archived and are actively creating right now.

If you have found a resource that’s really helped you as you navigate the world of preserving now obsolete media, please do share that with us!

Editor's Note: after 1st posting without a title -- one has now been added

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NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.

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Think your friends, colleagues, or fellow genealogy researchers would find this blog post interesting? If so, please let them know that anyone can read past UpFront with NGS posts or subscribe!

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Suggestions for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please send any suggested topics to UpfrontNGS@mosaicrpm.com

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Unless indicated otherwise or clearly an NGS Public Relations piece, Upfront with NGS posts are written by Diane L Richard, editor, Upfront with NGS.

10 February 2014

Sometimes to save our history we have to move it!

Sometimes to preserve an important part of our history, we end up “moving” it someplace else!

I’m not talking London Bridge which moved from London to Lake Havasu City, Arizona, nor the Temple of Debod, moved from near Aswan Egypt to Madrid Spain, I am talking less flashy and more local efforts made to move buildings or structures in order to preserve our history while at the same time encouraging modern development.

This past week, another historic house (Crabtree Jones House, c. 1795) in Raleigh was moved to make way for an apartment complex and a few years ago a house was moved to make way for a large shopping center (Midway, for which a documentary film was produced by Godfrey Cheshire). These are not the first houses to be moved to make way for “progress” nor will they be the last and what’s key is that there was a dedication to preserve these houses versus just tearing them down.

Unfortunately, all too often we do hear about historic houses, buildings, or other structures which are so neglected that they fall apart before our eyes. Or, we hear about situations where the financial resources are not forthcoming and a historic building is destroyed, not for lack of interest and for lack of money (e.g. Catalono House).

And, this is not new. There are many buildings which had already disappeared from the landscape before I was born or soon after (e.g Meredith College building).

As with everything else, in some regards we would like to preserve it all! Is that realistic? Probably not. If not, how do we decide what to preserve assuming limited resources? Are the oldest buildings a priority? Unique buildings?

I don’t have an answer to those questions. I do know that I do appreciate any piece of history which is preserved. Many would argue that we shouldn’t even “move” these historic buildings. On the other hand, if the choice is to move or preserve, I think moving has value!

What are your thoughts? Has your community preserved buildings by moving them?

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Think your friends, colleagues, or fellow genealogy researchers would find this blog post interesting? If so, please let them know that anyone can read past UpFront with NGS posts or subscribe!

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Suggestions for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please send any suggested topics to UpfrontNGS@mosaicrpm.com

22 January 2014

Historic preservation maps can be invaluable to genealogists

Whether you are doing a house history, learning the history of a locale, helping with an application for a historic property, etc, historical context plus documentary & non-textual resources are invaluable.

I stumbled across a neat GIS web service (aka map) (HPOWEB) for NC created by The North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office

“This service was created by the State Historic Preservation Office as an aid to planning and research. Site locations and boundaries are drawn from georeferenced scans of National Register and historic property survey maps supplemented with aerial photography, county tax parcel layers, and other sources. Data layers in this map are updated daily from the current HPO geodatabase. ARCHAEOLOGICAL DATA ARE NOT INCLUDED IN THIS SERVICE.”

It’s a really neat resource to see what properties have been identified. Run your cursor over any “shape” on the map and you will see more details about the identified property and if it is listed in the National Register, there will be a link to its application.

This information can be invaluable to genealogists. For example, assume my family lived in the vicinity of a structure which had been identified as existing at the time when they lived in the area. If there are extant records for that historic property, might there be a mention of my family?

Has your community, county or state created a similar map showing identified historic properties?

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Want to learn more about interacting with the blog, please read Hyperlinks, Subscribing and Comments -- How to Interact with Upfront with NGS Blog posts!

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NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog.

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Follow NGS via Facebook, YouTube, Google+, Twitter

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Think your friends, colleagues, or fellow genealogy researchers would find this blog post interesting? If so, please let them know that anyone can read past UpFront with NGS posts or subscribe!

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Suggestions for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please send any suggested topics to UpfrontNGS@mosaicrpm.com