Are you looking for old maps of the places you research?

Question

If so, here's a great little article: https://www.newyorkalmanack.com/2022/01/maps-in-the-national-archives-catalog/?awt_a=eey.&awt_l=F.uRZ&awt_m=hnfb_KtaBF8Sqy.

It's focus is New York, but it has some good national sources.

Comments

I use the Library of Congrees maps frequently, but I'd add a big resource the article missed: the Boston Public Library's Leventhal Map and Education Center.

https://www.leventhalmap.org/

And for the City of Boston specifically, use Atlasscope to overlay modern maps/aerials with a slew of historical maps.

https://atlascope.leventhalmap.org/#view:address-search-bar

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That's great, Wayne, some neat maps, there.

Answer 1

If anyone has Scottish ancestors the National Library of Scotland has an amazing collection of online maps which can be invaluable even for those of us who think they know an area well.

Plus, old maps are so fun, they are addictive!

https://maps.nls.uk

Comments

There are some great maps there, too.  I used them to look up ancestral sites at Kettins and Coupar Grange.

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The National Library of Scotland maps aren't restricted to Scotland. They have a good collection of older Ordnance Survey maps for the rest of the UK I find the early 20th C  OS  maps at 25inches to the mile very useful. There's a less comprehensive selection from outside the UK but it includes things like WW1 trench maps and earlier maps of India and Jamaica.

Answer 2

US Southern Colonies Project has a collection of links for county/district formation information for Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas & Georgia at https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:US_Southern_Colonies_Project_Needs_Location_Research

Comments

Thanks, Liz, that will be useful for tracing my wife's Montgomery County, Maryland ancestors.

Answer 3

Great question and good to see some individual regions noted - but it would be great if there could be a central Wikitree resource page that provides links by region and that we could all contribute to and benefit from.

If anyone knows how best to start, I'd be happy to help contribute!

Comments

That would be great, Tyler.  This page might be a model, of sorts: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Baptism_and_Marriage_Records_of_the_DRC_in_America

My ability as a Wiki coder is far too limited to undertake the task.

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It would be a task for sure but a really useful resource that could be built up over time. I think there could be a lot of folks who would contribute - and surely users would benefit from having a central source to start from and easily get to specific links by regions of interest.

So, a question and a possible suggestion:

The question is whether categories might be the best way to organize these on Wikitree since these seem to allow a common starting page - but also nested subsets, by region, country etc. (And in most cases these geographic categories are already established for other purposes).

A suggestion would be that maybe the geographic area projects could be reached out to in order to contribute core links on a sub-category page for their region. I'd be happy to be a point person for three projects that I'm currently involved with: France, Acadia and Québec.

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I included a maps section on the New Jersey Sources page. Any of the existing Sources pages could have a similar section. These are collaborative pages and are open for edits, be bold and edit or just leave a comment and the PM will add it for you. 

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Sources-New_Jersey#Maps

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What a great page, Heather!  Wow, what an effort that represents.

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I just added a Maps Section on the https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Sources-New_York page.  I'll add some more, as I find them. Thank you, Heather, for the suggestion.

Answer 4

A good resource for U.S. cities from the late 1800's and early 1900's are the "Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps" available through the Library of Congress.  They show locations of streets, locations of buildings and businesses, and in some cases even location of gas, electric and water utilities.  They are not available for all cities, but there are over 35,000 thousand, searchable by city and by century/decade/year, as far back as the mid-1800s.

https://www.loc.gov.collections/sanborn-maps

Comments

The Sanborn maps are a great resource, David.  Thank you for bringing them to our attention.