Let me start by saying thank you to Jennifer Jones, Bill Moore, Bill Butcher, Cathy Horvath, Paul Zuros, director of the museum at Historic Fort Steuben, and so many more of you who attended today’s program.This was a very special program made possible by a suggestion from one community member and introductions from another. It’s precisely the kind of thing that, as family historians, we’re always looking for.

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Overview

Like a trio of superfriends, Crystal Lorimor, Jason Garczyk, and Anthony Atkins were civil servants working to serve the people of their county in Belmont, Ohio, when they landed on the idea of connecting historic documents to GIS data. And, as Anthony put it:

If you offer a GIS person data, they’re going to say “yes!”

Belmont County, Ohio, sits within the Seven Ranges, a region of the historic Northwest Territories. This region was the first effort by the young nation to create a means to raise funds and settle debts with the Revolutionary War veterans who helped win American independence from Britain.

The urgent business of selling the land created pressure to survey great swaths of land as quickly as possible. The result was this Seven Ranges strategy of square plots of land. As embedded into the resulting tool, the 1787 ordinance authorized the Seven Ranges land survey.

While watching Anthony’s detailed demonstration of the tool, you can follow along with your own instance of the web application. You’ll find it at:

Explore the web application: gis.belcogis.com/Northwest_Territory. As of this writing, access is completely free, and no login or registration is required.

Resources

Several resources useful to genealogists, family historians, and history buffs were mentioned, among them:

* Historic Fort Steuben, referenced by the director of the museum, Paul Zuros, who attended today’s program.

* The Bureau of Land Management site, where patent documents can be found, and more details can be explored.

* If you have suggestions, additions, comments, or corrections to the GIS webmap, please direct them to Anthony using this tool at the Belmont GIS page.

* Anthony referenced documentation for James Evans on FamilySearch.org.

* Dohrman Tract example, Anthony demonstrated links to both

* Original land patent document, Township VIII, Range VII

* Wikipedia page describing the history behind the tract.

* As an example of the beautiful, handwritten detail of these patent documents, Anthony shared:

* Township VI, Second Range

Today’s program shows you what can be done and the extraordinary potential when a few curious and talented people get together. You’re welcome to share this recording to introduce this idea to others in your community, GIS team, or local authorities. You can find team members either here on Substack or through their websites:

* Crystal Lorimor, Belmont County Community Improvement Corp.

* Jason Garczyk, Belmont County Recorders’ Office

* Anthony Atkins, Belmont County GIS Office

As a follow-up to today’s presentation, Crystal Lorimor will join me on Sunday, November 2nd (see the event calendar for your local time).

I expect this will be an ongoing conversation, and I look forward to your feedback, suggestions, and ideas. Thank you again for your encouragement of this project. Have an idea about a local project in your area? Reach out and let me know!

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