Maps

How can maps help me research my family?
Maps will help you locate the places where your ancestors lived and give you context for the records you are using. Maps identify political boundaries, place names, parishes, geographical features, cemeteries, churches, and migration/transportation routes. Historical maps are especially useful for understanding boundary changes or finding communities that no longer exist.

You can find online maps at:
 * Google Maps - Using Google Maps can be a really quick way to see the basic geography of the area you are researching. You can also use online tools with Google Maps to tag where your ancestors lived or to share your map information with your family. You can also use Google Maps to plan a trip to see where your ancestors lived. Google Maps, however, will only show you the most up to date information of an area. Therefore, you will want to use historic maps to understand geographic/boundary changes or to find communities/landmarks that no longer exist.
 * To learn more about how to use Google Maps for your genealogy research, go to this blog post by Miryelle Resek.


 * David Rumsey's Historical Maps Collection - This collection has over 90,000 free, high quality, map images online. Maps range from 16th-21st century from all parts of the world.
 * Old Maps Online Collection - This website has indexed over 400,000 maps for library, university, and national institutions. Each map in this index links to the original website that houses it.
 * You may also find maps at archives, libraries and historical societies. The following are some good collections you might want to start with:
 * Library of Congress Maps Collection
 * Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library
 * Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection

Maps are published either individually or as an atlas. An atlas is a bound collection of maps. Use tools like gazetteers, guidebooks, local histories, historical geographies, encyclopedias, and history texts to get the most out of maps.

For more information about how to use maps for research, go to Five Ways to Use Online Historical Maps for Genealogy.

Maps by country

Types of Maps
To select the right kind of map to solve a genealogical problem, it is helpful to know what kinds of information each type of map displays.


 * Atlases: bound collections of maps.
 * Historical atlases are especially useful because they tend to plot historic towns and landmarks more accurately than old maps do in relation to jurisdictional boundaries and geographic features.
 * Census maps If you know your ancestor's address (or general area of residence in rural areas), census maps showing enumeration district boundaries can indicate where in the census rolls to search for the ancestor.
 * Chamber of commerce maps show streets, government offices, courthouses, libraries, businesses, museum archives, and important landmarks. You can usually obtain them for free from the city/town's chamber of commerce.
 * City and town maps show detailed street information, addresses, rail and mass transit routes, and landmarks.
 * County, Parish, or Province maps  show roads, cemeteries, landmarks, local boundaries, and physical features.
 * Fire insurance maps (Sanborn maps) of 12,000 cities and towns yield street names and specific properties and addresses starting in 1867. Using these with city directories can help locate urban ancestors in a given year.
 * Land ownership (cadastral) maps and plat books show boundaries of land plots, and usually the owners' names.
 * Military maps show extreme detail regarding geographical features, terrain, landmarks, natural resources, place names, and landmarks.
 * Railroad maps indicate preferred routes of travel during an era where the routes changed from one year to the next. These also aid in tracking the possible whereabouts of railroad employees since many railroads merged or changed names.
 * Topographic or geologic maps show terrain, natural resources (forests, mining resources), and features that affected travel (rivers, rapids, canals, mountains, mountain passes, canyons).

Helpful Terminology

 * Boundary change maps show shifts in borders of townships, counties, states and territories over time.
 * City and town locator maps plot a town and often give its coordinates so that it can be plotted in an historical atlas or map to determine the county, parish, or state in which it resided during a given year.
 * City plans often demystify the renaming of streets, parks, neighborhoods, and other features.
 * Gazetteer is a geographical dictionary or directory used in conjunction with a map or atlas. It typically contains information concerning the geographical makeup, social statistics and physical features of a country, region, or continent.
 * Historical Geographies focus on how geographic phenomena has changed over type. Although historical geographies tend to focus on human impact in an area, it can also include ecological, geological, and environmental changes as well.
 * Local histories focus on the history of a geographic area and a local community. It usually incorporates cultural and social aspects of a place's history.