how much time do you spend each week on research?

maxxkatt

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I spend probably 3-5 hours each week on civil war research. Mainly comparing civil war maps to modern maps. I compare them to Google maps and the county I am searching on their GIS property tax maps. In that way I can tell if the property is public or private. Also accurate representation of streets and creeks and on some of them they show the contours of the land. Not in topo map fashion, but in shadows that show the gullies and hills.
 
Never counted it. But much more hours then hunting hours.
Research for something specific can cost me months up to a year on and off.
And my mind is always ready and alert for accidentally passing signals or information, even when not busy with hunting.

Need to say i mostly hunt focused on ancient history were i prefer to discover new virgin locations, which you can not find that easy without research.

I do no research for modern playground coins. Those i know or discover by accident, sometimes when driving somewere and try random. Hunt them out (empty), and if i found nice i go back a good time later. The only research i do there is looking around when there if it's old or not, the situation (busy? which corners?), and estimate my chances for what to expect and how to hunt it.
 
When I am driving I look to see old stuff that looks out of place then do some history hunting behind it to see if it maybe worth my time to MD.

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Any free time I have is usually spent googling for maps and information related to my areas.
 
I spend probably 3-5 hours each week on civil war research. Mainly comparing civil war maps to modern maps. I compare them to Google maps and the county I am searching on their GIS property tax maps. In that way I can tell if the property is public or private. Also accurate representation of streets and creeks and on some of them they show the contours of the land. Not in topo map fashion, but in shadows that show the gullies and hills.

Where do you find the tax maps?
 
A couple hours per week, mostly searching historic books, old newspaper archives, and zooming around on google earth.
 
If you count time spent on Google Earth, quite a bit. I'm often scanning Google Earth and comparing things with other aerial images or old maps, topos or lidar. And probably a few hours a week researching an interesting civil war site.
 
i probably spend more time reading old text about the area than looking through maps - I love local history and there are some fantastic stories if you start going back through old newspapers!

One recommendation - call your local public library (if they are open) and ask if they provide free online electronic access to newspaper archives. Mine does provide search capabilities on state newspapers on a website that would normally be a pay-to-search service
 
I spend probably 3-5 hours each week on civil war research. Mainly comparing civil war maps to modern maps. I compare them to Google maps and the county I am searching on their GIS property tax maps. In that way I can tell if the property is public or private. Also accurate representation of streets and creeks and on some of them they show the contours of the land. Not in topo map fashion, but in shadows that show the gullies and hills.

I spend 3-5 hours each week dreaming i could hunt CW stuff! :lol:
 
Where do you find the tax maps?

usually every county has GIS tax maps online for public records of who owns which property. just google GIS and your the county name you are interested in.

note: a lot of the interface or GUI is different for each county, but not too hard to figure out.

It is a good way to determine either private or public property. In Georgia any city or county property is fair game for me as well as power lines and surprising for some reason Georgia Power company owns large tracts of property with nothing on it but weeds or trees. I have no idea why they own it, but again I don't bother with permissions on these types of property.

with private ownership or corporate ownership usually a nice letter gets the dialog going towards a successful permission.
 
I spend 3-5 hours each week dreaming i could hunt CW stuff! :lol:

You never know, one guy found a CSA belt buckle in a school yard in a town that had no civil war action of any sort. But returning soldiers did keep a lot of personal items issued to them. That is the least they could do for men who took huge risks by being in the respective armies.
 
How do you find old maps to use to compare to new maps or google earth? I'd love to do more research but I'm not really sure where or how to start. Right now I just kinda go either on word of mouth that this happened there....or something took place over here....or use my county's tax site to date homes. But otherwise...I don't know how to get on prime properties that have old pioneer/colonial home sites or Civil War activity that might not be well documented.
 
How do you find old maps to use to compare to new maps or google earth? I'd love to do more research but I'm not really sure where or how to start. Right now I just kinda go either on word of mouth that this happened there....or something took place over here....or use my county's tax site to date homes. But otherwise...I don't know how to get on prime properties that have old pioneer/colonial home sites or Civil War activity that might not be well documented.

I use historic aerials a lot. For my area I think they only have topo maps going back to 1932. They also have aerial photography (dating back to 1950 for my area) and they have a compare feature. So for things further back such as civil war areas I find what maps I can, compare to the oldest topos I can find and use Historic Aerials compare feature to spot what those locations are today. Then Google Earth gives great current views of the property.

For coin shooting I often look on Google Earth first, find what look to be old locations with grassy areas to metal detect then look to see what was going on at the location in the past with Historic Aerials. I find if that field behind/beside the school/church has always been a field and would have had many people playing/picnicking or whatever or if the field used to be houses that were bulldozed and likely has a lot of fill dirt.

Historic Aerials
https://www.historicaerials.com/

Library of Congress map search
https://loc.gov/maps/

Old Maps Online
https://www.oldmapsonline.org/
 
Been able to spend a lot of time researching during this whole pandemic lockdown situation. Historic Map Works is another great resource online. They have many hard-to-find atlases from 100 plus years ago.
 
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