Centennia Historical Atlas provides a video demo of the border changes in Europe from 1850 to the present
Centennia Historical Atlas is an application you can download and install on either Windows or Mac computers, providing animated maps of Europe from the 11th century to the present, a time span that ought to cover most genealogical purposes. The maps are dynamic – you can watch the borders change over time, with a separate text window that provides event details.
What intrigues me is this video demo of the border changes in Germany from 1850 to the present – a useful tool for those of us trying to find ancestors in Germany, Prussia, Bavaria, Austria, Bohemia, Pomerania, and its various other incarnations.
Specs: Centennia Historical Atlas software runs under Mac OSX (Intel Macs running Leopard, Snow Leopard) and Power PCs running 10.4.1 or later, as well as Microsoft Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP. The software requires a modest 20 megabytes of hard disk space and 40 megabytes of memory.
So I’m intrigued by this, but at $79 for a single-user license, I’m not rushing out to buy. (I guess I should have asked Santa for a subscription.) I think it would make a great purchase for genealogical libraries under a multi-user license.
Have you used the Centennia Historical Atlas? I’d love to hear more about this product.
There’s an online demo that looks great, showing the borders moving, but it doesn’t have the separate window that simultaneously documents the events in text.
I agree – $80 is steep.
I am pretty sure this is the same product I purchased years ago for about $15. It was on a 3.5 inch disk (remember those?) and users were SUPPOSED to get the upgrade on cd but it was never sent to me. Perhaps they have added a few more bells and whistles. But if it IS the same program, it was very cool to watch the borders change – especially for Poland, since you “see” it disappear off of the map entirely for 100+ years. But $79? They’d have to have added a heck of a lot more info for me to pay that much for it.