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Three weeks trying to figure out why a 1790s map of Boston had a street that didn't exist yet

Turns out the map was from 1795 not 1790 and the street got built between those years, but I only caught it after I spent an afternoon cross-referencing tax records at the library, has anyone else been burned by a wrong date on a map before?
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hart.ryan
hart.ryan3h ago
Slide into that rabbit hole with you, I spent a whole weekend once chasing a phantom street on a 1920s Sanborn map only to discover it was drawn in pencil but never actually paved. The smallest date typo can throw off hours of research when you're trying to match old records to a modern layout. It's wild how one little number can make you doubt your entire sanity until you double-check the source.
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