What's New on Histopolis - Q3 2010

We are actively improving and expanding the site. Here are some of the recent changes:

30 September 2010

  • Place-of-the-Day. You can now visit the Place-of-The-Day page to view the Place-of-the-Day for today or any previous date.

  • Survey Area. If the survey (PLSS) area is specified for a place, Histopolis now parses, validates and resolves the survey area specification and displays the results. For example, for a place in Washington State the survey area specification of "T40N R1E Section 5" results in (S5 T40N R1E Willamette).

  • Grave Index. The Histopolis Grave Index now contains 1.5 million entries.

  • Several miscellaneous improvements.

22 September 2010

  • Place-of-the-Day. Each day a different place is featured on the home page as the Histopolis Place-of-the-Day. Check back daily to learn about and/or contribute to a different place. Contact the webmaster to suggest one of your favorite places for a future Place-of-the-Day.

  • Nearby Cities. Refined the cities listed to include the closest unincorporated city if it is within the six closest cities.

21 September 2010

  • Internet Explorer 8. Corrected a problem that sometimes prevented place borders from being drawn on the place map. A script error was sometimes also displayed if script debugging was enabled in the browser options.

  • Added/Updated. Several listings now indicate when an entry was added and/or last updated. Only recent changes are noted.

  • Located In. Simplified the "Located In" information when a place spans multiple jurisdictions.

26 August 2010

  • Resource Links. When a link was added to an external resource the title was initially displayed as "(page title not available)" because Histopolis did not yet have the page title or description. This information was collected by a background process and could take several days to appear on the site. The page title and description are now obtained when the link is added and are immediately available.

22 August 2010

  • Cemeteries. We have created a cemetery-specific landing page that enables you to quickly see the list of cemeteries in a county.

  • Facebook. We have created a page for Histopolis on Facebook. If you have a Facebook account, you can "Like" our page and receive notifications of new developments and comment on Histopolis.com.

  • Place Navigation Bar. Previously, the Place Navigation Bar was included on most but not all pages. The Place navigation Bar is now standard and included on all pages.

  • Help Topics. We have added help pages on the topics Histopolis Place Hierarchy and the Place Navigation Bar.

  • Donations. We have added the ability to donate to Histopolis via PayPal. Donations help us to keep the site free and fund its operation and growth. If you enjoy Histopolis and find it useful, please consider a donation.

  • Several miscellaneous improvements.

26 July 2010

  • Histopolis Grave Index. We have added a grave index containing grave-level links to sites containing information on individual graves (interments). The grave index extends (but does not replace) the existing cemetery-level resource links and provides additional capabilities when researching the graves of specific individuals.

    Cemeteries that contain grave index entries are indicated by the † symbol following the cemetery name when the cemetery appears in a list, such as the list of cemeteries for a county.

    To learn more about the Histopolis Grave Index and how you can participate, see the Department of Veterans Affairs database which includes "burial locations of veterans and their family members in VA National Cemeteries, state veterans cemeteries, various other military and Department of Interior cemeteries, and for veterans buried in private cemeteries when the grave is marked with a government grave marker."

    The Histopolis Grave Index currently contains grave information from this database for over 275 cemeteries, including:

    This site was indexed using the "Normal" rule since the information is in the public domain. The indexing of this site is not yet complete.

  • Cemeteries within Cemeteries. Some cemeteries are located within the boundaries of another cemetery but yet remain an independent cemetery. Histopolis now recognizes and supports this situation. The inner cemetery will be displayed in the list of cemeteries as normal but the location will include the name of the outer cemetery in addition to the normal city, township, county, state and country.

    Cemeteries in this situation will be updated as they are identified.

  • Cemetery Subdivisions. Cemeteries are usually subdivided into smaller areas such as sections. Histopolis now supports subdivisions as named places within a cemetery. If we have information on the subdivisions, they will each have their own page on Histopolis and be listed on the page for the cemetery. The initial use of this capability is to define a "Soldiers Lot" within specific cemeteries containing such an area.

  • Place Coordinates. Latitude and longitude are now displayed in degree, minute, second form in addition to the previous decimal degree notation.

  • Nearby Cities. Previously, "Nearby Cities" displayed the closest six incorporated cities within 15 miles. Some areas have few incorporated cities or do not use incorporated cities at all. Now if there are fewer than six incorporated cities listed, the nearest unincorporated places will also be included up to six cities in total.

  • Statistics.

    • Links. There are now over 180,000 links to place-specific genealogy and history resources.
    • Grave Index. There are now over 400,000 entries in the Histopolis Grave Index with links to sites with death and interment information on specific individuals.
    • Ranking. Histopolis.com is now ranked in the top 40,000 web sites in the US based on page views. Thanks for your support!

  • Several miscellaneous improvements.