The easiest (but most restrictive) access requires no contact with us at all: simply go to The New Martenet Atlas and zoom around until you find your area of interest. Single clicking on that area will launch a pop-up window (you have pop-ups allowed from www.martenet.com, haven't you??) which will list the specific grid (or block) you clicked on, and will list how many records we have pertaining to that area. This is useful to see if we're very heavy or light in a particular spot, but isn't good for much more than that.
The next form of access is what we call an instance. Instances allow a certain person access to the records in a specific geographic location for a period of time, generally a week. During that period, the person has complete access to every digital record we have concerning that location. They see on their machine what we see in-house on our machines. While logged-into an instance, the user can perform unlimited searches on the archive, whether or not it is in the area covered by the instance. However, records coded to fall outside of the geographic limitations of the instance will not display; only the title information will list. While logged in, instance users also have access to our vast collection of contextual resources.
An instance covers one grid in the counties, and up to five contiguous blocks in Baltimore City. We will make special arrangements in cases where your project straddles a grid line, perhaps with special pricing, or perhaps not, depending on the volume of material we have for the area. Call us and ask.
The problem with searching our site if you're not logged in with an instance is that you can't see in detail what we have in an area, only the number of records. So we created subscriptions that allow access to the site for in-depth searching (and access to the ancient surveying records and also some other non-geographic-specific records) to see what specifically we have, anywhere in the state. Thus, one can see if the 6 records we list in an area are actual Martenet surveys, or railroad valuation maps or Coonan surveys or whatever. Additionally, subscribers have access to other resources to assist in research, for instance Charles Pielert's massive book listing land grants, ordinances and laws concerning public corporations, all the Baltimore City ordinances stretching back to 1797 and forward to 2008, all of the city directories, the records of the Baltimore Town Commissioners (who had the authority to settle boundary disputes), all of the early appellate court reports, and other useful, hard to find data. In fact, as far as we can tell, our digital archive is the most comprehensive one in existence for this sort of data, comprising over 600,000 pages of material--and that's not including our survey record archive! Furthermore, any instances bought during an active subscription are discounted. And the more instances bought, the steeper the discount.
Our bias in all this is to make the site a compelling buy. Only you can judge whether we've been sucessful at that or not.
With all that in mind, here is the pricing schedule:
| Type | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Instance | $125.00 | for up to 5 contiguous city blocks or 1 county grid |
| Subscription | $225.00 | for 3 months, payable in advance |
| 1st Instance with active Subscription | $90.00 | each subscription renewal starts over |
| 2nd Instance with active Subscription | $75.00 | |
| 3rd Instance with active Subscription | $50.00 | |
| 4th and more Instances with Subscription | $40.00 | each |
There is one caveat to all of the above. Since we remain an active surveying firm, sometimes competing with other firms for work, it is possible you may have underbid us for the project. In that situation, the cost for access is double that of an instance with no subscription. That has only happened rarely since the site has been active, but is possible. We'll let you know if that is the case when you request the instance.
If you have any questions or would like to start an instance or subscription, locate the area in which you are interested using our map and then email us.