Newberry Library’s Atlas of Historical County Boundariesbaltimorefamilyhistoryworkshop.org/assets/84/Handout...AniMap or Newberry Library’s Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.!

Maps and Genealogy © Sharon MacInnes, Ph.D., 2013

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Genealogists recreate their ancestors’ lives by gathering myriad documents: census records, vital records, military accounts, deeds, tax lists, county and family histories, online databases, etc. We go to courthouses, historical societies, libraries, and conferences. But the stitching that holds all of the documented facts of a typical family into a coherent tapestry comes from consulting maps in all their forms. Since most genealogical records are filed by geographical area, you can’t find an ancestor’s records unless you know where he or she lived. Maps unveil how they traveled, with whom they intermarried, and how they lived their lives. Brief Methodology:

v Use census records or written records (or even family memories) to place your ancestors in a general area. Pay particular attention to at least the 10 neighbors on either side of them. If you can’t find your ancestors in the next census, look up each of these neighbors to see where they are living and check that area for your ancestors. Friends and neighbors often migrated together in groups or followed each other to new locations. Look carefully in the new area as well as adjoining jurisdictions—your ancestor’s name may have been misspelled or even reversed in the index and you’ll only find it by going page-by-page in the census. Don’t forget state censuses. Keep maps at hand to track their movements.

o Don’t assume the account is literally correct. Many people, when asked where they are from, will state a nearby town that people are likely to be familiar with. For example, I will often say I’m from the D.C. area, or perhaps Alexandria, Virginia, but I don’t actually live in the city of Alexandria. Use maps of the time period to see nearby town names.

o Remember that county (and even some state) boundaries changed over time. Records were filed in the county jurisdiction at the time the record was recorded. Use AniMap or Newberry Library’s Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

v Check the county for any records your ancestor left behind: probate, court, marriage, death, etc. Look also for connections with the neighbors shown on the census. Be sure to check in parent counties for your ancestor and possible parents.

v Check published county and city histories to find details of the specific place in which your ancestor lived. Personalize your ancestor’s life. If your ancestor isn’t mentioned, and even if he is, see if there are accounts of the neighbors included. Many families intermarried and traveled together. Knowing where a neighbor came from may lead you backward to their previous location. Many county and city histories were written around the centennial (1870s and 1880s). As you read these histories, follow the events on maps and atlases that were drafted about the same time. Even if your ancestors never appear in a published history, the events that happened in the township or county where they were living were very real to them.

v Locate your ancestor’s home or land in an atlas or on a landowner map. Many were published in the mid-to-late 1800s. Study the neighbors for familiar names. If your ancestor isn’t on the map, you may be able to home in on his land through the neighbors mentioned in census records.

v Look on the map for churches close to where they lived. Check USGS topographic maps to see if any barriers exist that would route the family to a different church. The easiest church to reach of the right denomination will probably contain birth, marriage and death records of family members.

Genealogy and Maps:

A Perfect Marriage for Tracking Ancestors

Remember: Documents such as wills and deeds were recorded in the county as it existed at that time. Maps show earlier boundaries.


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v Look at the 19th-century maps and topo maps for cemeteries close to where they lived. These cemeteries may be posted on findagrave or billiongraves, but transcriptions of many are separately posted at county-centric websites.

Selected Resources for Finding Landowners (free unless denoted otherwise)

U.S. Changing county boundary lines: v Newberry Library’s Atlas of Historical County Boundaries: http://publications.newberry.org/ahcbp/

o Click on a state o East subheading is active so explore each one o Click on “View Interactive Map” and select a date your ancestor lived there to see county

boundaries at that time overlaid over modern counties. v http://www.genealogyinc.com/maps/united-states/ (AniMap animated maps, click on your state –

highly recommended) v AniMap ($79.95 for full version at http://goldbug.com/animap/ or download for $64.95 from Legacy

Family Tree Store (http://www.legacyfamilytreestore.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=ANI_DL) v http://www.his.jrshelby.com/hcl/ - click on a state for choices

Where to Find Published and Online Maps Helpful for Genealogists:

v National collections o Library of Congress digital online collection:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/gnrlhome.html § Click on “Geographic Location Index” and then the category you wish between the two

“from” and “to” columns. You can download these maps and save them to your computer. They are continually scanning their huge inventory, so check back often.

o Topographic maps at USGS: (free, even though you may be asked to put these in your cart): http://store.usgs.gov/b2c_usgs/usgs/maplocator/(ctype=areaDetails&xcm=r3standardpitrex_prd&carea=%24ROOT&layout=6_1_61_48&uiarea=2)/.do

§ Enter the name of your town or area of interest and click “go.” The screen that loads next will have several grids to choose from.

§ Click on one of the grids to mark the exact location in which you are interested, and a marker will appear at that place

§ Click the marker and a bubble will appear showing available maps with choices to either view them or download them; the size of the downloadable file is given

§ Click on your choice (I download the file). Open the zipped file from your downloads folder and zoom in to see details. You can save the file to your computer for future reference or close it without saving it. Minute detail will show you creeks that are grown over, cemeteries, etc.


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§ If you know the township, range, and section where your ancestor lived, enter it at http://www.earthpoint.us/TownshipsSearchByDescription.aspx and it will show you by “flying” to it on Google Earth

§ If you know the latitude and longitude (perhaps the place no longer exists but you located it at GNIS – see below), you can convert it to township and section at EarthPoint: (http://www.earthpoint.us/TownshipsSearchByLatLon.aspx)

o U.S. Digital Map Library: http://usgwarchives.org/maps/table2.html o Bureau of Land Management (settlers of 30 Public Domain States): If your ancestor wasn’t

actually the first owner of his tract but you know the township, range and section in a particular county, you can still find the exact location and first owner of the tract (who might be related) by using the BLM’s Land Patent site (http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/search/default.aspx?searchTabIndex=0&searchByTypeIndex=0) First, enter the state and county under “Location.” Skip the “Names” section and fill in the township, range and section under “Land Description.” The next page will give you the names of each original owner of that tract of land. Click on the link in the “Accession” column and that will give the patent for the original owner who may not be of interest to you. What will be of interest to you, however, is the map at the bottom of the page under “Land Descriptions.” Click under “Map” in the first column to put a check mark in the box and activate the map. A map will immediately appear which will show the exact location of the tract. You can zoom in or out to see the tract.


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o Geographic Names Information System (GNIS): http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic/f?p=132:1:7460852864975844

§ Search for any geographic name, even obsolete ones (abandoned cemetery, church, crossing, forest, populated place, post office, etc.)

o Home Town Locator (http://www.hometownlocator.com/) is essentially an online gazetteer for all 50 states, including many obsolete features.

v Privately published (many online) – do a Google search using your county name and “plat map” o HistoricMapWorks.com ($) has one of the most extensive county atlas collections in the U.S.

You can view the maps but cannot zoom in completely, nor can you print without a charge. Use this site to first find out what landowner maps and atlases exist for a county, and then search for other sites that might have posted those maps for free.

o Ancestry ($): Use the search engine at “U.S., Indexed County Land Ownership Maps, 1860-1918” at County plat books (http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=1127). Alternately, browse by the state, county and year. Also, check out the mapping function on every family page.

o www.arphax.com ($) has published a large number of plat books containing the first landowners of each county. You can purchase individual county books or a membership in their www.historygeo.com which allows you to see all of the books throughout the year. Information included in these volumes comes from the Bureau of Land Management patent database or the Texas General Land Office database. You can check it out with a free demo account, or pay $20 for 3 months access or $59/year.

o Deedmapper ($99; http://directlinesoftware.com/) is a do-it-yourself land platting program. Using original deeds (“Beginning at a black oak...”), you enter the metes and bounds and then the metes and bounds of neighbors.

o Google Earth, Google Maps o David Rumsey (free): http://www.davidrumsey.com/view/google-maps o Histopolis: free, collaborative source that pinpoints locations - http://www.histopolis.com/ o Linkpendium http://www.linkpendium.com/ o www.familysearch.org o Warrantee maps (for the 20 State-Land States; i.e., http://ancestortracks for Pennsylvania) o Railroad maps o Fire insurance maps – the privately published insurance maps are often in local repositories. The

most complete collection is at the Library of Congress which is gradually posting them online. See http://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/sanborn/.

o Road maps – often in local directories o City directory maps – often city directories have maps in them which can be consulted when you

find a family listed. These directories often show which streets have been renamed and can be invaluable when a family appears to have moved from one census to another. Many are being posted online (ex: NC has posted various directories from 1860-1963 covering 108 cities in 64 counties, http://library.digitalnc.org/cdm/search/searchterm/City+directories/field/format/mode/exact/

§ Fold3 (http://www.fold3.com/image/242559803/) has 30 directories for major cities § Ancestry (http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=2469) has a collection 1821-1989

o Whatever genealogy software you are using undoubtedly has a mapping function

v University Collections – there are many, many university collections online. Two examples: o University of Pittsburgh’s “Historic Pittsburgh” site: http://digital.library.pitt.edu/maps/ o University of Texas, Perry-Castaneda Map Collection:

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/united_states.html

v State Collections: Maryland: v Maryland State Archives (free): http://guide.mdsa.net/viewer.cfm?page=landrecords v “Beneath the Underground: The Flight to Freedom and Communities in Antebellum

Maryland”: http://www.mdslavery.net/html/mapped_images/mapsindex.html v Historical Society of Carroll County, MD Tracey Collection in Westminster (410/ 848-6494)


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v Early land patents west of Baltimore Co. Some of these records are online at http://mdhistory.net/msaref07/tracey_fr_wa_cr/html/index.html but a visit is much more efficient if you have early landowners in western MD. ($5 user fee)

Pennsylvania (all free): v USGenWeb Digital Map Library for Pennsylvania:

http://usgwarchives.org/maps/pa/county/index.htm v 19th Century PA County Atlases: free, downloadable images at http://ancestortracks.com

VA (& others): v VA Land Office Patents & Grants: http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/wv/index.htm v Deed Data Pool: http://www.directlinesoftware.com/pool.htm (you can only see the indexes

for free; if you want to download these files that volunteers have donated into a map, you will need to have a copy of DeedMapper on your computer)

KY: v Kentucky Land Office: http://www.sos.ky.gov/land/ v http://www.kentonlibrary.org/genealogy/pdf/

International Maps: Old Maps Online (http://project.oldmapsonline.org/collections

v Center the area of the world in the rectangle on the screen, then zoom in and reposition until you’re satisfied. Old maps of the area (European, North American, etc.) show up on the right side. Click on your choice and zoom in to see any of their 30,000 historic maps