A Background Look at How a Recent Atlas of Maine Was Made

Title Page of my copy of the atlas.

One of my favorite atlases is The Times Atlas of World History (Revised Edition), edited by historian Geoffrey Barraclough (New York Times obituary for him in 1985 here).  Over the years I've spent many years browsing through the pages, learning about migrations around the world and the various eras.

I use maps almost as much as I use records in my genealogy research.  Like records, it is good to know why and how these atlases are created.  They didn't just write themselves.  What does it take to compile such a work, and what are the decisions for inclusion and exclusion of information?

The following is a lecture that was given at the Schoodic Institute in Maine by scholar Richard W. Judd, who recently published "Historical Atlas of Maine" (available here and here) with Stephen Hornsby and Michael J. Hermann.  Although very much in the weeds, I found it fascinating to see a discussion of what lead up to the creation of the atlas, plus some sneak peeks into it (it's about $75, which is reasonable for a book like this).

BTW, I had to laugh when they got to 41:16 in the video when he shows "Village of Lock's Mills."  Look closely and you will see among the landowners someone named J.G. Tibbetts, a distant Tibbetts cousin of mine, no doubt.  Tibbetts seem to be all over Maine.

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