Last year, I won a wonderful facsimile atlas in a contest by the Royal Library. I love maps and am a founding member of the study group for the history of cartography in my home town. When I saw that the Royal Library was giving away a copy of this atlas for the best tip on how to get the most out of their newspaper website Delpher, I did my best to submit an outside-the-box kind of tip to maximize my chances of winning and it worked :-) My tip? Search for common OCR errors. I really enjoy … [Read more...]
Quick tip: Free images of Dutch colonial past
24 June 2014 by 1 Comment
The National Archives and Royal Library of the Netherlands have just donated thousands of images of the colonial past of the Netherlands and its trade partners to the public domain. These images have been uploaded to Wikimedia and are free for everybody to use, without restrictions. Here are a few gems: View images from the Atlas of Mutual Heritage on Wikimedia … [Read more...]
Column: Citizen archivist
4 October 2013 by Leave a Comment
Citizen archivists is a term coined by David S. Ferriero, the Archivist of the United States, to call a new breed of users of archives. Visitors who not only come to take information, but bring it as well. Visitors who help to create access to archives by contributing in the form of comments, transcripts or tags. The benefits to the archives are clear, but why would visitors even bother? Let's take me as an example. Whenever I find a Dutch immigrant on Ancestry with a hopelessly mangled name, I … [Read more...]
Dutch term: kadaster
1 July 2013 by Leave a Comment
The kadaster is the government body responsible for the registration of property (real estate). Introduced in 1832, the kadaster records the owners of all plots of land and ships. In addition, the kadaster records any rights attached to the property and any mortgages against the property. The kadaster information is used as the basis for property tax. … [Read more...]
Land Ho! Vingboons maps
24 February 2007 by 3 Comments
Johannes Vingboons was a 17th century Dutch cartographer. He made beautiful watercolor manuscipt maps of the East and West Indies. His work can now be seen both in an exhibition in Rotterdam and online. … [Read more...]
