Maps and Geography
Are you familiar with the area where your grandparents were born? You may know that it is a small Pennsylvania town called Shanksville, but you may not know what county it's in, or even whether it's located closer to Pittsburgh or Philadelphia. That's why the first thing you should do when you begin research in a new area is pull out a map. Online map services such as Yahoo! Maps (
When your research uncovers an unfamiliar place name, turn to a place names database such as the U.S. Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) (
Locate a Lost Town, Village, or Creek
What if you can't locate your ancestor's town on a modern map? Place names change. Geographical and political boundaries shift. Communities fall into disuse and disappear. Look for the answer in a gazetteer created during the time period of the document where you found the place name referenced. A gazetteer is a book that names and describes places in a given area during a given time period. With your mystery town's description and location from the gazetteer, you may be able to unearth a map from the period and identify the town's geographical location.
A variety of gazetteers can be searched and viewed online. One good modern gazetteer is Falling Rain's Global Gazetteer (
Historical gazetteers can be used to locate towns that do not exist in modern times. While most are tucked away in libraries and archival repositories, many historical gazetteers can also be accessed online. Sites such as Vision of Britain (
You must know who had jurisdiction over a location to find records, but political and geographic boundaries are constantly changing. To help ensure that you're looking in the right place, AniMap Plus for Windows, by Gold Bug Software (
Explore the Lay of the Land — Virtually
Maps provide the opportunity to visually explore the places where your ancestors lived, as they existed at the time. A variety of maps can be of use to genealogists, including:
Historical Maps — Historical maps come in many varieties. One of the most useful for genealogists is a historical landowner's map, which shows property parcels along with the name of each landowner. Historical maps may also show churches, cemeteries, and other areas of interest. Thousands of historical maps are available online, some for free viewing and others for purchase. One of the largest free collections is the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection at the University of Texas at Austin (
Topographic Maps — Topo maps, short for topographic maps, are a favorite with many genealogists because of their high level of detail. These maps emphasize physical features on the surface of the earth, from mountains and streams to cemeteries and railroad lines. Largescale topo maps are sometimes so detailed you can see individual buildings, churches, and all navigable roads.
Fire Insurance Maps — Fire insurance companies often requisition detailed maps of heavily populated areas to aid them in determining the risk factors in underwriting a particular property. These maps can be useful for genealogists because they depict building outlines, property boundaries, and street names for more than 12,000 American towns and cities. The Digital Sanborn Maps, 1867–1970, offers online access to a collection of more than 660,000 such maps. This database is available through subscribing libraries and institutions, so check with your local or state library to see if they offer it.
