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Joining the OSM US Charter Project program
Aug 25, 2026 · original
Big announcement! An exciting and important update: I m very pleased to announce that OldInsuranceMaps.net is now officially a Charter Project of OpenStreetMap US ! OSM US is a US-based non-profit that supports the community of mappers around OpenStreetMap, as well as numerous tools and websites related to open mapping efforts. As part of the Charter Project program, OldInsuranceMaps.net is now affiliated with OSM US s 501(c)(3) status, which not only makes it possible for people and organizations to make tax-deductible donations , but will further open the door to more grant opportunities and partnerships down the road. Also, OSM US already includes two other fantastic community-focused history projects, OpenHistoricalMap and Yesterdays , so joining the network brings a multiplier effect to this whole digital public history stack. Having an Advisory Board Another change I m especially l
Testing the waters with 2 GCP georeferencing (Helmert!)
Jul 28, 2026 · original
In short… In OldInsuranceMaps.net it is now possible to georeference maps with only two ground control points, instead of the previously required three. For the time being though, we re keeping this capability hidden (more about that in this discussion and below), but I wanted to write a good summary here of how it works and why it is beneficial. Thanks to Dan VK for requesting this functionality in a Github ticket , and helping out along the way to streamline some of the code. I d been wanting to try to figure this out at some point, so this was a good push in the right direction. GCPs + transformation algorithm - warped map To georeference a scanned historical map, you must create ground control points (GCPs) that link locations on the map with real-world coordinates. Then, these GCPs are fed through a transformation algorithm which results in a warped image. The QGIS documentation has
OpenStreetMap account authenication added
May 31, 2026 · original
New feature on OldInsuranceMaps.net: authentication via OpenStreetMap ! A special thank you to OpenHistoricalMap for helping to fund this development :). As a new user to OIM, you can connect through OpenStreetMap right when you first sign up , or, if you are already logged into your OIM account, you can easily make a connection to your OSM account. You can read more detailed instructions in the documentation . And for more detailed information about the change to the code, checkout the pull request . I know it s a very common feature nowadays to be able to login through an external sites like Google or Facebook when creating new accounts, but I hadn t yet waded into figuring it out on OIM… frankly all of those login through other accounts buttons have always confused me. On the other hand, creating a new password for every website you visit is really really annoying (and leads to a slip
Recap: May Georeference-a-thons in New Orleans
May 18, 2026 · original
We had two successful and enjoyable georeferencing events earlier this month in New Orleans, thanks again to everyone who came out! About 20 people across the two Tuesday nights. Next time around, we ll finally mix up the schedule a bit so more people can make it out. Beyond georeferencing over 150 of pages of the Vol. 3, 1896 and Vol. 1, 1908 volumes (special shoutouts to Cacomixl , scanlan , and ngoddard !!) , we also had a few short presentations about research that folks have been working on recently. On the first night, Alice Blackwell talked about what she had learned about her block in St. Roch by looking at Sanborn maps, and Mike Godzinski showed architectural photos he s been taking while walking the quiet residential streets of Uptown. On the second night, Alexander Trapps-Chabala presented the geneaological research he s been diving into about his ancestry (with a dazzlingly c
Georeference-a-thons! HistoryForge (New Orleans), UMD, and UIUC
Apr 30, 2026 · original
Upcoming Georeferencing Events in New Orleans Here in New Orleans we are looking forward to two georeferencing events coming right up! For the next two Tuesdays (May 5th & 12th) we ll be partnering with HistoryForge to host georeference-a-thons at Second Line Brewing, just like we ve done in the past; these will be our 7th and 8th events here! These are fairly informal gatherings, with an intro and demo at 6:30, and then socializing and georeferencing to follow. We also hope to have a short presentation about areas we ll be working on (8th Ward and 12th Ward), though are still ironing out those details. If you are in the area and would like to attend, please RSVP here: tiny.cc/georef looking forward to seeing some of you next week! I d also like to highlight a couple events that other groups have held recently. Mapping Historical Duluth: A Crazy Long-Term Project You Can Contribute To At
Code4Lib 2026 - Video links and other notes
Apr 25, 2026 · original
Code4Lib 2026 Early last month I attended Code4Lib 2026 in Philadelphia, and gave a presentation called Old Maps for New Apps: Making and Using Georeferenced Sanborn Maps at Scale . It was a short one, 10 minutes, and while at first I thought I would be too pressed for time to give a full overview of OldInsuranceMaps.net to a new audience, I changed things around from how I usually do them and I m really happy with how it turned out. Per Code4Lib norms I ve made my slides available on Zenodo . I also facilitated an after-conference workshop, Running a Community Georeferencing Event , and five people came to learn about how OIM can be used for collaborative work at community events. We worked on Camden, N.J., 1885 , and also a bit on Helena, MT, 1888 where one of the attendees was from. Shoutout to kcamanch1 for completing Camden even after we finished the workshop! It was my first time a
https://blog.oldinsurancemaps.net/2026/04/03/last-month-i-presented-at/
Apr 3, 2026 · original
Last month I presented at #Code4Lib: www.youtube.com/live/6nBJ… While preparing the slides, 10 minutes was feeling really short (especially for a new audience) but I reworked some things and I think it s actually the best introductory talk about the project I ve given!
Newsletter: Winter (pt 2)
Mar 2, 2026 · original
New newsletter platform This email is (hopefully) finding you via my new setup on Micro.blog . So, so you ll see a different from address. Most importantly, unlike before, you cannot reply directly to this newsletter to get in touch . Please write separately to hello@oldinsurancemaps.net . Getting out and about Mapping USA: Video now on YouTube At the very end of January I co-led a workshop during OpenStreetMap US s virtual Mapping USA conference, Historical Mapping with OpenHistoricalMap, OldInsuranceMaps.net, and Yesterdays . These are three community-focused history projects that all swirl around the OpenStreetMap ecosystem, and This week (tomorrow!): Code4Lib I m in Philadelphia this week presenting at Code4Lib 2026 . If you happen to be attending, make sure to say hello! If not, all the presentations will be streamed on YouTube ( more info here ), so you can tune in around 9:30 am E
Upcoming: Mapping USA and Code4Lib
Jan 27, 2026 · original
Mapping USA (January 31) This coming Saturday at 1pm CST I ll be co-presenting in a workshop at Mapping USA , a free virtual conference organized by OpenStreetMap US. The workshop, Historical Mapping with OpenHistoricalMap, OldInsuranceMaps.net, and Yesterdays will feature demos from me, Jeff of OpenHistoricalMap , and (particularly excitingly) Jacob and Mike from the new project Yesterdays . We ll be showing how all of these crowdsourced applications are interrelated, for example, how georeferenced maps OldInsuranceMaps.net have been integrated directly into Yesterdays. Registration is free, so come join us online this Saturday afternoon! Code4Lib (March 2-5) I also have a presentation and workshop coming up at Code4Lib 2026 in Philadelphia. This will be my first time at this conference, so I m especially looking forward to meeting new people in the library world. Old Maps for New Apps:
https://blog.oldinsurancemaps.net/2025/12/27/blog-migration-completed-ive-consolidated/
Dec 28, 2025 · original
Blog migration completed! I ve consolidated all past blog posts and newsletters into this single feed on @micro.blog , and replaced the existing blog site at blog.oldinsurancemaps.net. Looks like some strangeness remains with dates on migrated past posts, but overall, success.
Newsletter: Winter 2025
Dec 12, 2025 · original
Herein: Updates on the future of OIM, some good ol' tech improvements, new blog post, and community notes. For new readers, welcome! And here are all past newsletters in case one isn’t enough.
(Re)Introducing the MultiMask Interface
Dec 1, 2025 · original
The “multimask” is a concept in OldInsuranceMaps.net that greatly eases the creation of seamless mosaics from many different georeferenced layers. I recently made some updates to the user interface for this tool, and decided to take the time to provide a better introduction to feature as a whole.
Newsletter: Fall 2025 - Upcoming Events
Sep 12, 2025 · original
Georeference-a-thons in New Orleans Over the next couple of weeks we ll be holding two community georeferencing events at Second Line Brewing in New Orleans. If you are in the area, we hope you can make it! Dates: Tuesday Sept 16th & Tuesday Sept 23rd Time: 6:30-8:30pm Location: Second Line Brewing, 433 N Bernadotte St RSVP Form: https://tiny.cc/georef-2025 As we have in the past, we re doing these events in collaboration with the Midlo Center and HistoryForge. We ll be starting work on the 1895 Vol. 2 Sanborn Map (which covers the CBD and more), and, excitingly, Elizabeth from the Midlo Center will also talk about the archaeological work they have been doing this summer in Duncan Plaza. We hope you can join! Front-end Party! In early October I ll be doing a talk and activity for the wonderful Front-end Party software developer meetup here in New Orleans. Exact details TBD (they ll be he
Using GDAL's VRTs for Georeferencing, from "A look inside OldInsuranceMaps.net"
Aug 8, 2025 · original
Recently I gave a presentation about OldInsuranceMaps.net for I-GUIDE s Virtual Consulting Office speaker series and I was able to talk a bit more about the technical details of the platform than I have in the past, which was really fun and a great excuse to make some more diagrams. One element of the system I described is the way that the georeferencing process relies on GDAL s virtual raster driver (i.e. file format), and how this is used for, among other things, the live preview feature of the georeferencing interface. Here s a short summary of that part of the talk with a few relevant slides. For more, you can view the full recording , or find the slides here (note, I ve updated some of them a bit since the recording). The basic georeferencing process, which turns a non-spatial image into a geospatial dataset, works by chaining two VRTs together and then writing out a GeoTIFF (specif
Newsletter: Summer 2025
Jul 15, 2025 · original
Hello all! Writing to tell you about a few things that have happened in the last few months, and some upcoming news. For new readers: Welcome! You can find all past newsletters in the archive . You can also respond directly to this email to say hello, and you ll find an unsubscribe link below. Online presentation for I-GUIDE VCO series, tomorrow! Wednesday 7/16, 11am US Central Time – registration link Apologies for the late notice. Tomorrow I ll be giving an online presentation as part of I-GUIDE s Virtual Consulting Office showcase series. I m really looking forward to this, as I ll be able to get into some of the more technical details of the platform, and there should be plenty of time for Q&A as well. Registration is free and open to everyone! Big thank you to Alex Michels for organizing these talks. Also, next week I ll be co-presenting in the same forum with my colleagues from the
Implementing S3 Object Storage
Jun 29, 2025 · original
What is S3 Object Storage? S3 object storage is a protocol developed by Amazon Web Services for handling file storage outside of a normal server environment and in the cloud instead. In other words, it s a simplified way of uploading, downloading, or directly accessing files that are stored in remote buckets . In these buckets, storage is (broadly speaking) very cheap and practically unlimited. Many other companies have since adopted the S3 API so their own cloud storage offerings are compatible with it. Implementing a new storage backend To this point, OldInsuranceMaps.net has functioned by downloading image files from the Library of Congress (or other sources, in certain contexts) and storing those files on the main server. Once the images are available locally, the splitting, georeferencing, and mosaicking operations are performed directly on those files, creating even more files (ult
Newsletter: 2024 in Review + new features!
Feb 21, 2025 · original
Hello and happy second month of the New Year! It is high Mardi Gras season here in New Orleans and I feel like everything is happening at the same time. For new readers: Welcome! You can find all past newsletters in the archive…
Newsletter: GIS Day Events | NACIS | Data Agreement
Nov 15, 2024 · original
In case you didn t know, GIS Day this year is next Wednesday, Nov. 20th, in the middle of Geography Awareness Week . GIS Day was started by the company ESRI (of ArcGIS reknown) many years ago, and I just learned that Ralph Nader was the inspiration behind the day. Of course, there is a lot to GIS beyond Esri, but as someone who learned about the field at the end of my undergrad and never looked back, I love that GIS Day exists and consider it a great holiday to promote. Also, what better time to hold historical map crowdsourcing events? Also, if you skip most of this newsletter, please at least read about the new Data Agreement at the bottom. Georeference-a-thons of Future UIUC - Healthy Regions & Policies Lab Through my work at HeRoP, we will be putting on a georeference-a-thon in Champaign next Wednesday. You can learn much more about it through this Eventbrite link . The event will be
"Handling Complex Content within Georeferenced Historical Atlases"
Nov 15, 2024 · original
Last month I traveled to the annual North American Cartographic Information Society meeting, this year in Tacoma, WA, and presented about OldInsuranceMaps.net . The video of the talk is now on YouTube: Handling Complex Content within Georeferenced Historical Atlases . You can also flip through the slides here: tiny.cc/nacis2024-ac . Even though it sounds pretty boring, this was extremely gratifying to put together and present, because it distills what I think is most unique about the platform. Abstract: While georeferencing a single map is an easy one-off process, applying the work across a whole atlas (or multi-volume set) is a challenging task–especially when pages have multiple insets and the atlas contains more than one category of maps. How do you structure this work, and create cohesive output? This presentation will describe the novel hierarchical approach within OldInsuranceMaps.
Newsletter: Fall 2024
Sep 13, 2024 · original
Upcoming Georeference-a-thons! Here in New Orleans we have two public Georeference-a-thons right around the corner! On the next two Tuesdays we will be gathering at Second Line Brewing (as before) from 6:30 to 8:30pm to georeference more New Orleans Sanborn maps for HistoryForge. We did this last summer, and the resulting work has been integrated directly into the HistoryForge platform (as you can see in the link, click the map icon). Having the Sanborn map layers is very helpful for tracking down old US Census records, and makes exploring the city s history even more engaging. Hope to see you there! RSVP Form A big thank you to Elizabeth from HistoryForge for making the flyer! CC licensing update Last winter, I wrote about my interest in applying a CC BY license to the work that people have completed on OldInsuranceMaps.net . Since then, I have done much more research on the topic by re

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