Researchers know that maps can provide valuable genealogical information. Personal and family names can appear on maps, often revealing information about the relationships among people living in the same neighborhoods or adjacent properties. County maps and atlases, insurance maps, and city maps are rich sources of information.
The New York Public Library's maps — numbering in the hundreds of thousands — are housed in the Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division. Matthew A. Knutzen, the Assistant Chief of the division, spoke with us about the groundbreaking work taking place there.
The Collection
Working with outside contractors, the NYPL has digitized about 10,000 maps. The ongoing project includes — as resources permit — indexing the names and features found on the maps — a task which is by necessity almost entirely manual and involves the participation of volunteers. Of special value to family historians are the county atlases produced in superabundance in the 19th century.
One on-going project of particular interest for genealogists is the mapping of New York City census tracts from the 19th century to the present so that census data can be compared on an apples-to-apples basis. Census data is collected ward-by-ward, but ward boundaries change nearly every decade. This project enables the changes in boundaries of wards and enumeration districts to be seen at the click of a mouse. This previously wasn't possible without hours and hours of tedious adjustment of data. Updating the relationship between the ward boundaries and the data collected "can unlock the secrets of the census."
Given the vast amount of information in the NYPL and the human and financial resource limits of the library, how does the library decide what projects to undertake? The answer: very strategically. A "Digital Experience Group" establishes digital priorities for the various departments. Choices are made which maximize the range of patrons that can be served, the research projects which might be supported, and the strength of the collections themselves. "We focus on New York because that's who we serve," Matt says.
Digital Projects
Matt's passion is not just maps. He's focused on the groundbreaking work taking place in his division to create new knowledge by combining maps and information sources that relate to maps, such as census data and information gleaned from directories.
The intimate connection between books and maps makes digital projects in the maps division particularly appealing to NYPL information strategists. The commitment to create new knowledge is imbedded in the NYPL's new mission statement which is "to inspire lifelong learning, advance knowledge, and strengthen our communities."
In short, the idea is to digitize historical maps and to link maps made in different points in time to each other. From there, digital data is then linked to the maps so that the researcher can not only see how a particular place has physically developed over time, but can also see how patterns of work and habitation have evolved as well. This process Matt calls "reverse data engineering," meaning that data is returned to a place on the map as it actually occurred, rather than, say, in an alphabetical compilation. This kind of learning and the resulting insight is not possible without sophisticated technological tools.
A key partner in the Map Division's work is Entropy Free, a software developer in Brooklyn working to create the optimal ways to deal with geospatial information. Matt characterizes the people at Entropy Free as "open-source software activists." The NYPL and Entropy Free are building sophisticated electronic research tools that are opensource and copyright-free so eventually others everywhere can use the technology, too — essentially an ethical commitment of the library to the unencumbered availability of information and learning and therefore a gift of the NYPL to researchers everywhere.
Other partnerships are forming between developers and educational institutions in the United States and Canada. For example, here in New York, the State University of New York at Stony Brook is using the New York Public Library collections to study the environmental history of Long Island. Of interest to family historians is that the project is loaded with family names that will be indexed and searchable.
Citizen Cartographers
Technology can't be harnessed for these kinds of projects without the sweat equity contributed by volunteers. In the Map Division, they're called "citizen cartographers." These avid amateurs receive tutorials and training at the NYPL and then work remotely or in the library itself to make manuscript data machine-readable. Then maps and data can be analyzed in ways never done before. Some citizen cartographers are interested in architecture, others in demographic data, and still others in ethnic and religious background, occupational data, and distribution of business types. Eventually, drawing a complete, multi-dimensional picture of a neighborhood or section of a city or county becomes achievable. Matt says, "Our intention is make it possible to build an extremely granular digital view of New York, right down to the building level."
Different aspects of the Map Division's work have different timelines. Perhaps all New York City maps will be digitized in five years. The creation of a digital version of historic New York City may be accomplished in ten years. "As we go along, we find out how long this is going to take," Matt says. "I'm not worried about the project's scale. It's priority work for the library and it's all there just waiting to happen."
© 2011 The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society
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