11:12:16 >>JESS: Okay.
11:12:16 Hi everyone my name is Jess.
11:12:16 I'm excited to share with you today and the work that I did for my masters thesis in history at Brock University and Saint Catherine's from 2018 till 2020.
11:12:25 My goal today is to provide you with the basic explanation of how I used to GIS them to come to some of the research conclusions I did want doing my thesis.
11:12:54 This project was my first time ever using GIS, and my supervisor suggested that adduce some research on GIS and historical mapping adequately realized the potential that it had for letting me to investigate my topic of choice from a different angle.
11:12:55 I was interested in looking at trade patterns during the first few decades of the loyalist a settlement close to American Revolution, and JS Hillman visualize these patterns.
11:12:58 I ended up compiling an Excel spreadsheet with around 13,000 points of data, and use them to create and explore wet.
11:13:25 For me, using GIS solidify the importance of geography or space in historical research and how it can be understood alongside human agency in the events and patterns that took place.
11:13:26 My web map shows a small survey of what domestic exchange look like for growing communities in Niagara rebilling who participated in trade, where, when and in what capacity, as well as how this changed over a period of three decades.
11:13:39 The data set that I created for this map was compiled from the account books of the soulless (sp?) family who operated the Kingsmill's and what is now Niagara.
11:13:40 The males were located right here where this triangle is.
11:14:06 The spreadsheet includes values listed in this account books such as commodity type, mostly dealing with wheat lumber and potash as well as the quantity, price, method of payment, the name of the seller and the location where their home form was.
11:14:07 These point layers were analyzed further by changing their symbology and then performing some basic analyses with the merge and the buffer tools so that I could combine data sets and project boundary lines.
11:14:28 I also added some historical map layers like these historical ones from Niagara, but also added Niagara escarpment boundary layer, modern soul maps as well as floodplain layers.
11:14:28 I was able to access most of these three Bronx map data and GIS library.
11:14:37 I know Sharon Janssen is in the audience there so a shout out to Sharon because she is great.
11:14:48 So by projecting the source and the quantity of commodities like wheat lumber and potash onto the map, I was able to make observations of where the centers of production or lack of production in Niagara occurred.
11:14:55 The map is not leading.
11:15:00 I'm just going to refresh it.
11:15:04 Sometimes it doesn't do it right away.
11:15:24 >>LIZ: I shared the link for the story map in the chat as well if people want to open it on their own.
11:15:28 Your computer might be overloaded because of all the zooming.
11:15:28 >>JESS: You know what that might be it.
11:15:29 That's what I wanted, okay.
11:15:49 Thank you.
11:15:55 So in the GIS I got to see him settlement and commercial growth took place along the Scott met in the region's main waterways and it is noteworthy that those who lived in these particular areas engaged in trade of thinking smells more often than others and in higher qualities as you can see on this map.
11:16:09 Similarly by plotting the locations of Niagara's first 20 for males that exist, the story map is not doing what I wanted to do,, come on, you can do it.
11:16:37 By plotting the location of the first 24 meals that existed in Niagara by the year 1792 onto the map and then overlaying Niagara is, later we can count how many were built on the is, and we can see I have of the males built in our group were also built upon the Niagara.
11:16:37 This is significant because it solidifies the importance of this garment as location of early manufacturing centers and central points of commercial enterprise.
11:16:59 Ultimately these analyses revealed how Niagara farmers negotiated the benefits and limitations posed by the environment on factors such as Niagara's escarpment and creeks and rivers.
11:17:15 As mentioned earlier with one of the benefits of GIS is being able to show developments that happened over time and for example, I was able to see him in the 1780s before many of the males had been built in the region, about half of the kings males customers were traveling there for over 10 miles away, and then by the 1790s the number went down to 14 percent at which point more
11:17:27 in my LLS been built on more parts of the peninsula.
11:17:27 You can see that small communities have been starting to grow throughout the region.
11:17:29 One such community was formed at the 15 mile falls, which is where Rockway Glenn is now in the (name?) Township if you are familiar with Niagara.
11:17:53 So the thing about combining GIS with history is that it really complicates our work with primary sources.
11:18:03 Normally as a story as we look at archival documents, diary entries, newspaper clippings and letters as qualitative sources, so we bring in quantitative information like information from account books and ledgers when they combine it with this really precise technology, it is a holy thing to navigate.
11:18:03 Some of the data on the map could be skewed because of issues with interpretation with primary sources.
11:18:22 For example, here the Cornish used in this project to pinpoint the locations of the farmers that interacted with the kings males were determined on a wide array of sources, and some of the names I want to show you, you should show up.
11:18:33 Yeah, so all of these points will show their data.
11:18:33 But some of the names in the account books are indecipherable.
11:18:35 Some surnames don't appear on any historical maps like this or any synthesis and archival references.
11:18:47 Many families on multiple pieces of land in different townships, and many squatted on land before receiving official title to it.
11:18:48 Meaning that the land on the 100 acre plot here might not even accurately reflect to live there at the time.
11:19:08 So those are some of the things that I had to navigate on with this project, and I wouldn't say that the technology is limiting to historians when these confusing situations arise, but rather it's in these moments where we have the freedom to choose the path that we take with the sources and the sure that we are trying to uncover.
11:19:19 So in conclusion, I found this project to be challenging yet exciting entry into the world of GIS.
11:19:27 For historians mapping and historical GIS used to be creative appendix to research a way to help visualize conclusions that had already been made.
11:19:34 Now we are using GIS to directly drive analysis of the best which is very cool.
11:19:35 Thank you for listening, thank you for all those who organized this conference.
11:19:48 I love seeing the history crossovers, and I should also mention that within a year from graduating I have been lucky to be involved in three other historical GIS spatial history projects.
11:20:00 So there's a ton of application that of same for these skills, and in this knowledge, and sorry my map didn't work for a little bit there.
11:20:00 It is great, thank you.