Fun Things Picked Up Along the Way

Too short to be separate posts, too good to forget:

• You may have seen maps that shrink and squeeze the US Electoral College map in order to show states in sizes proportionate to their population rather than land area. (Here's a crude one.) Well, here's one that divides the existing map into 50 states of equal populations. The names are great too. (This may be the most interesting re-imagining of the Midwest since Jefferson's proposed states.) Thanks to Barbara Mathews for mentioning this on Facebook.

• Michigan State University has 42 Civil War collections on line, including letters, regimental records, sheet music, and more. In an illustration of the endless perversity of archiving, some records of Company A of the 4th Ohio are here. (Some "collections" consist of as little as one letter.) Surnames: Austin, Baker, Bostock, Carpenter, Cole, Davis, Eaegle, Farr, Fields, Foote, Goodale, Hardenburgh, Havens, Henson, Hoffman, Jewell, Kennedy, Kirk, Lickley, Lucas, McGowan, McLain, Miller, Nelson, Noble, Outwater, Parkhurst, Parsons, Peck, Pinckney, Porter, Shaw, Stoddard, Thompson, Tooker, Waldron, and Whitman. So the Big 10 is good at something besides basketball.

•  Three economists claim to have discovered "the first evidence that distinctively racialized names existed long before the Civil Rights Era," using death certificates and census records from Alabama, Illinois, and North Carolina.  

•  Find out what "petroliana" means.

Harold Henderson, "Fun Things Picked Up Along the Way," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 4 March 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]