I'm a CRM archaeologist/GIS tech who has worked with historians for specific projects.

The historians I have worked with use GIS extensively. The clearest example of this is that historians pull historic (>50 years old) geographic data from utilities, municipalities, counties, etc... This data is generally found as a shapefile or cad file. The data are incorporated into our cultural resource database and managed according to the historian's recommendations. Specifically, I have worked with historic transmission line data which was pulled directly from the shapefile the utility in question sent the firm. This is private sector stuff, so maybe not exactly what you were talking about.

In addition to this kind of private sector archival research, I have seen a number of awesome Google Earth kml or kmz files with historic data. These files are an awesome way to interact with historic data freely and on your own time. Google Earth also incorporates historic aerial/ satellite photography when it can.

I have also seen projects online that illustrate change over time in a map. Here's a cool one for New York City. There are numerous animated maps showing change over time.

That's historic GIS specifically. I'm a prehistoric focused-archaeologist and let me tell you, I use GIS ALL THE TIME. As I mentioned, I'm a GIS technician, so it's actually my job. The amount of information that can be stored is amazing. We can also do spatial analysis to find patterns that are not evident based on a visual analysis.

At this time, GIS databases (including the visual interface and all the data you mention in your question) tend to take up a massive amount of space. ESRI (the leading GIS software company) is working on building ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS for Server. The goal of both of these, as far as I can tell, is to allow greater publication and access to geographic data. You can look around on their website to see what kinds of projects are underway.

Yes, and I'm one of them. I work on the Digital Atlas of Roman and Medieval Civilization (DARMC).

You should also check out Harvard University's WorldMap project, which many projects like Russian Imperiia. Worldmap is an excellent tool if you want to get started with GIS yourself and don't have the money or technical skills to utilize more advanced tools like ArcGIS.

It is a rather new and very important field.

I worked with a professor that was studying some battles in Poland with GIS. This was in the era of smoothbore muskets. Bullets that had been fired had a distinctly different shape than unfired bullets. So, you used archeology to find the two sets of bullets. Where you found fired bullets was a likely spot for where there were soldiers--or a spot on a line between where the shooters and targets were. Where you found unfired bullets is where soldiers likely stood, and dropped some while trying to return fire. He and the folks he was working with were able to examine the accounts of the battle for accuracy with the data they collected. Neat stuff!

A similar thing was done with Custer's Last Stand.

I think this is the paper we looked at on the subject.

Here's another paper on the subject.

David E Kelley of Oberlin College is working on a GIS based study of China's Grand Canal and rice shipments along it. I'm not sure when it's expected to be published.

I am currently using GIS for my MA to map the rwanda genocide massacre sites - where they were, how long were the used as massacre sites, was there a pattern to how the genocide "moved". I could never have done this project without GIS.

Thanks all for your answers! While I was originally thinking about GIS as a teaching aid, it was interesting to hear about specific targeted uses for research. Telkanuru’s stuff was exactly what I was thinking of. I would think as a student the digital atlas of Roman civilization would be a huge help in visualizing history.

Now can anyone help me go back in time 30 years and major in history instead of engineering to work on something like that? Using GIS to track sewer manholes is nowhere near as interesting as tracking bishoprics and language spread.

Are you thinking of something like this maybe? It is the entire of Herodotus' Histories digitally mapped:

Using a digital text of Herodotus’s Histories, from which we have extracted all place-names, we use web-mapping technologies such as GIS, Google Earth and Narrative TimeMap to investigate the cultural geography of the ancient world through the eyes of one of its first witnesses. Our aims are twofold. First, we depart from the traditional cartographic idea of geographic spaces as points on a map, by using the digital medium to read text and space alongside each other, thereby allowing a sense of space as something lived and experienced to emerge. In particular, we construct network maps of the relations between places in Herodotus in ways that challenge the schematic division of the world as a clash between East and West, between Asia and Europe. Second, we enable users of different expertise and interests—researchers, students and general enthusiasts—to use our technologies for themselves.