Robert Kibbee, The History Center in Tompkins County (NY); Jesse Larson

This presentation will explore the potential for using QGIS to create dynamic, engaging representations of communities in their historical setting. We will introduce the QGIS world to HistoryForge, (historyforge.net) a unique source for spatiallydefined historical data, and will show and talk through how we create maps in QGIS to enhance HistoryForge’s core mission, which is to encourage every community to explore its history, encourage new historical narratives and build a sense of place. HistoryForge has used QGISdeveloped maps in a variety of presentations and hopes to build a substantial gallery of cartographic interpretations of its data as part of its web environment. We will present six to eight maps developed for this session by the presenters and, we hope, some guest cartographers. We’re looking forward to discussing potential and future plans with fellow QGIS users. This presentation will also demonstrate the HistoryForge application, review the data sources and the data capture and validation procedures and discuss data download strategies for import into QGIS. HistoryForge is an opensource web environment for exploring local history. The development model uses US Census records for Ithaca, NY, from 19001940, but the application is being developed and documented for any community to adopt. Volunteer transcribers capture all available attributes from the records on the manuscript census sheets, creating a rich dataset with four distinct timeposts (the date of each decennial census). The spatiallyinformed data provides a strong base for working in QGIS. Every personal record is geoaddressed. In addition to records for individuals, HF also creates geoaddressed records for every building in Ithaca, documented from the census (residential buildings) and from historical maps (commercial buildings) and city directories. HistoryForge allows users to filter the datasets by multiple attributes and display the filtered results on layers of contemporary historical maps (City Engineering Maps, Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps). Most map layers are georectified and constructed in Tim Waters’ MapWarper, running locally, but city ward and census enumeration district map layers are constructed in QGIS. We hope that QGIS users, particularly those involved in or supporting digital humanities programs, will come away with a new appreciation for historical data sets and the potential for bringing these to life with QGIS.