So, I am the dopey, quiet kid in the back of the class that is actively raising his hand: ME! ME! ME! PICK ME! I'M THE IDIOT WITH THOUSANDS OF HOURS OF RESEARCH!.
I have "invested" more than 4000 hours researching mining claims. I started out mapping the quadrants claims were in from the LR2000. When I first started doing that, I mapped all the actives and closed by quadrant in N California from Marin County northward--- probably took me 6 months to do. The bad news is I was mapping them on google earth and as you add more information to the program, it starts getting bogged down wiggy, to the point where you need to empty the cache- often. One REALLY BAD THING about google earth is when it says it is saving your work, it isn't. Trust me on this. I lost all that data in several crashes, and when I looked for the backup, and there wasn't one- so 6 months of work went poof! in an instant. Now when I save, I save it to a .kml file on my desktop. Did I say often? Like every time I add a new location?
So after waiting 6 months after that first crash, I thought I would work at rebuilding my database, but I would change some of the parameters I used- after all a crash that wipes your data away is a GREAT opportunity to start over and do it better. Word of advice- back up often on your desktop, because if you get lazy, GE will crash on you just to piss you off. Has happened to me more times than I can remember. I think on my 3rd or 4th rebuild of the database, I decided to actually go to the recording offices and get actual images of all the mining claims filed out there, but rather than just the quandrant it was in, so I expanded my search and photocopied the exact boundaries of all active mining claims. So now I can go in once a month and update my map so I can see where EXACTLY all the actual claims lay.... getting pretty cool.... but then I got to thinking.... I wonder where all the HISTORIC mining claims were
?? Due to the LR2000 online data, EVERYONE with online access can determine approximately where claims filed since 1980 are, but the LR2000 doesn't go back before that to make any earlier determinations.... But the recorder's office has all those records.....So basically, I worked my way up into a frenzy looking for the proverbial "needle in the haystack"- where the old timers were finding gold. I spent the next couple of years making 3x weekly trips to the recorders office to photocopy EVERY CURRENTLY AVAILABLE MINING CLAIM FILED FROM 1870 FORWARD. My present maps told me where the active claims that were already filed were, so I didn't need to know those locations.... but I didn't know where the historical gold was found. Why did I choose 1870? Previous to 1870, the descriptions of the mining claims on the filings read something like this "in a canyon, one corner with 6 rocks piled, another corner with oak tree with metal tag..... in other words, in 1870, the description could have meant something, but 150 years later... it meant nothing. In 1870, at least some of the descriptions mentioned well known mining concerns which still exist today; canyons which still carry the same name (lots of canyons have names which were lost in time- anyone heard of School Marm Canyon near Downieville? If so, contact me), etc.... so at least I had a clue. And as you move forward in time, around the 1920's is when the PLSS was pretty much standardized, which made it a lot easier to figure out where everything was. But a big caveat in all this is even up to the 1960's probably 50% of the recordings I have looked at- I cannot figure out what they were describing (a pile of rocks, tree with crook in it, in an unnamed canyon)- so bad descriptions are timeless and I would say that 50% of all the recordings I looked at had bad descriptions and are useless today to figure out where they were. .....And you gotta remember, up until 1960's mining was an actual INDUSTRY, so people didn't file claims to go camping on- they did it as a viable commercial industry. Upshot of all this is it has turned into an obsession. Now that I have base maps of all the active claims, I can compare the actives to closed to historic and in Washoe, Nevada, Sierra, Placer, Plumas, Butte and a little bit of El Dorado counties I have literally 150,000 acres of old mining claims which are available to go explore and I know where their EXACT footprint was. A lot of these claims from the 1940's back haven't been claimed since, probably because they are located in a location where people didn't expect to find gold. Due to the easy accessibility of the LR2000, it ends up that presently, the same claims get filed upon over and over, because all someone has to do is to go online to see the claims from 1980 forward to reclaim... The old stuff is what I am looking for and I have more old stuff to explore than I have years left alive. I want to go where no modern man has gone before.
It started out as "something interesting to do" and has become an obsession. I love maps, mapping, historical research so I have overlayed every possible historic map ever created onto google earth and because of such, I even found a ghost town that I don't believe anyone else
had ever found. And using my maps of placer claims, and maps of known channels, I have created my own maps linking old minor channels together by connecting the string of placer claims (and more lately, lode claims) together.
Short answer to a very long thread..... I have more time into this thing than I care to even try to assess a value. The good news is I KNOW WHERE EVERYTHING WAS- down to the exact claim boundaries, so when I go out looking, I know exactly what I am looking for... I have a searchable database of all the photocopies I have, filed by Township/Range/Section; I have map layers of what is claimed, what isn't, how long it has been unclaimed, the years the claim was held for and if it was a very historic claim- I know WHO claimed it so I can do further research. Hours "invested"...... I am guessing 4000, but probably any multiple of that and none of it is billable.
Trust me, I know how to make my own fun.
