Weaving History into Place
Cultural Fabric: What is it?​
History isn’t just names and dates—it’s the stories of people, places, and the connections that shaped our world. Cultural Fabric is a dynamic geospatial platform that brings history to life, mapping out the past in an interactive and meaningful way. It weaves together the stories, events, and landmarks that define local history, putting the people who lived it at the center.
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Whether you’re a historian, cemetery manager, genealogist, or just someone who loves uncovering the past, you can help connect historical figures to the places and events that shaped their lives.
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Cultural Fabric is a crowdsourced historical mapping initiative that helps:
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Cemetery managers preserve burial records and connect them to family histories.
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Historians and genealogists build interactive maps that link people, places, and events over time.
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Communities and organizations showcase historical sites through storytelling.
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Tourism and cultural groups create immersive heritage experiences.
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Researchers and scholars track land ownership, migration, and community changes.
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Uncover and map the histories of enslaved individuals, Indigenous communities, immigrant groups, and other historically marginalized populations. Trace land ownership, migration patterns, forced removals, and the hidden connections that shaped generations.
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With GIS-powered maps, AI-driven name matching, and contributions from people like you, Cultural Fabric connects the dots between burial sites, family histories, Indigenous stories, and the legacies of slavery—all in one powerful platform.
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Key Features
Spatial Inventory
Community Assets
Maintain a geospatial database of significant individuals, events, and places. Search and instantly visualize their historical connections. Designed for preservation offices, municipalities, and cultural organizations, this tool helps manage and contextualize local heritage in an interactive, structured format.
Celebrate and Illuminate Cultural Diversity
Celebrate the rich and diverse histories of Native Americans, enslaved individuals, immigrant communities, and other historically marginalized groups. Use Cultural Fabric to uncover and map their stories—tracing land ownership, migration, forced removals, and the deep connections between people, places, and events over time.
Cemetery Management
Provides cemetery managers with tools to maintain accurate burial records, map grave locations, and connect interments to family histories, historical events, and broader genealogical research.
Community Powered Contributions
Cultural Fabric offers a platform to highlight the work of those preserving history, from cemetery restoration and headstone conservation to documenting local history and family stories. It connects preservationists, historians, and genealogists, ensuring that history is both recorded and celebrated.
Digital Tourism
Cultural Fabric helps tourism bureaus and heritage organizations promote historical sites through interactive, self-guided tours with geotagged stories, images, and narratives. It also allows event listings for heritage events, reenactments, and commemorations.
Geospatial Genealogy
Users can search for their ancestors, trace their movements over time, and create new spatial features like property boundaries or even pinpoint the exact location where a loved one’s ashes were spread. This transforms genealogy into an interactive, visual experience—like a digital tapestry of history, woven with personal and historical significance.
Why it Matters
Unifying Disconnected Histories
Across cemeteries, archives, and historical societies, valuable records exist in isolated systems—fragmented, duplicated, and difficult to access. Cultural Fabric brings these pieces together into a single, interactive platform, weaving local histories into a unified cultural record.
Supporting Ongoing Preservation Efforts
We’re not replacing existing efforts—we’re amplifying them. By providing a digital space for historians, genealogists, cemetery preservationists, and community archivists to share their work, we empower those already safeguarding history while making their contributions more accessible to the public.
Strengthening Community Connections
History is personal. Whether you're researching family roots, preserving a cemetery, or mapping cultural landmarks, Cultural Fabric helps communities see how their pasts are interconnected. This fosters a shared sense of identity and a deeper appreciation of heritage.
A New Approach to Historical Data
Unlike traditional research tools that focus on names and dates in static records, Cultural Fabric visualizes history spatially. By mapping people, events, and places together, we provide a dynamic way to explore history that has never been done at this scale.
Privacy and Control Over Your Data
Not all historical records are meant for public access. Organizations and individuals can choose to keep data private, manage who can contribute and view information, or share select records with the broader community.
Unlocking New Opportunities
For cemeteries, historical societies, and local tourism bureaus, Cultural Fabric isn’t just a research tool—it’s a way to engage the public, attract visitors, and generate funding. Integrated donations, digital tourism, and storytelling features turn historical data into sustainable community assets.
Be Part of the Future of Digital History
Whether you’re looking to invest in a groundbreaking platform, contribute historical data, or bring this technology to your community, Cultural Fabric is leading the way in reshaping how we experience and preserve history.
Join us!
Help shape the future of our collective Cultural Legacy.
Cultural Fabric isn’t just a mapping tool—it’s a living, evolving Spatial Humanities project that blends technology, history, and community engagement to deepen our understanding of the past in an interactive and meaningful way. We invite historians, genealogists, preservationists, and community leaders to help shape the future of historical mapping by connecting people, places, and events across time. Whether you’re honoring the memory of a loved one, tracing the lives of enslaved individuals, preserving Indigenous histories, managing historical assets, or promoting heritage tourism, Cultural Fabric provides the tools to map and share these vital stories. Our platform helps create structured, interactive inventories of historical sites while allowing users to keep data private if they choose. Join us as a pioneer partner, follow along with our personal journal, or share your insights through our survey to shape the future of digital history.​
Customer Discovery Survey
Your opinions matter! Please help us inform the development of Cultural Fabric by sharing your experiences, challenges, and ideas. Your insights will ensure your needs are met as a practitioner of historical preservation, event promotion, cemetery management, and community narratives.