I thought this was interesting.
Susan D. Chambless
listowner for the CHAMBLESS, GAUSS and GLENDAY
surname lists, now at RootsWeb -
http://www.rootsweb.com/ - please join us!",
Check it out:
http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~schmblss
I'm posting a lot of old family letters & papers
centered around the Charles Henry Gauss family of St. Charles, MO.
Surnames are: Gauss, Johns, Fawcett, Glenday, Durfee, Lindsay,
plus, of course, the people they knew.
-----Original Message-----
From: Josephine Lindsay Bass [SMTP:jbass@digital.net]
Sent: Thursday, March 04, 1999 8:43 AM
To: LINDSAY-L(a)rootsweb.com
Subject: MAPPING YOUR ANCESTORS
"MAPPING YOUR ANCESTORS - USING MAPS IN GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH,"
by Curt B. Witcher, FUGA
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One can hardly conduct thorough, meaningful research on any family line
without incorporating the use of maps in some significant way. Maps are
generally so plentiful, such interesting and exciting sources of
information, and come in so many varieties that their study and use could
become an avocation in and of itself. This article will discuss some of the
popular maps for genealogical research as well as some of the more obscure,
though all are useful in one's quest to discover early family origins.
The type of map most genealogists are initially familiar with is a standard
political map that is found in most commercial atlases. Political maps
typically indicate locations of city, towns, and counties, and may have
some physical features such as rivers, streams, and lakes. The hallmark of
a good political map is an easy to use, comprehensive index. Political maps
can be key to a researcher's quest to find the counties which contain the
records of an important ancestral town.
Perhaps the most commonly used map of this type in genealogical libraries
and repositories is the Rand McNally "Commercial Atlas and Marketing
Guide." With more than one hundred and twenty-five editions having been
published to date, this atlas provides the researcher with the county
affiliation, population, and zip code for each city and town as well as map
coordinates for actually locating the entity in the front section of maps.
The Rand McNally atlases also have a number of other maps, guides, and data
tables of varying importance for the historical research.
While topographical maps tend to be less used by many genealogists, their
importance should not be minimized. Topographical maps, also known as
relief maps, typically show significant physical features as well as
contexting the areas being detailed with the locations of major towns and
often county boundary lines. These maps generally not only detail a hilly
or mountainous region but may also, typically through the use of colors and
shading, provide the researcher with some idea of how high the mountains
are and how steep the peaks. Also there tends to be an accurate and
thorough detailing of bodies of water, occasionally even including the
direction of flow on rivers and streams.
A good topographical map for an area of ancestral research can cause one to
view potential locations of records in a completely different light. Not
infrequently a researcher will have a whole new picture of an ancestor's
homestead when placing the property in the context of its physical
surroundings. And the county seat of the neighboring county may just become
most logical place to check for some vital, church and other records as it
was infinitely easier to cross an invisible county boundary line than even
a small range of mountains during some time periods in one's family's
history.
Historic plat and land ownership maps of all sorts can be a boon for family
historians. As their name implies, these maps indicate who owned parcels of
land in a particular geographic area for a specific time period. Usually
land ownership maps were done on a county-by-county basis, but that is not
always necessarily the case. While many of these ownership maps simply
provide the property owner's name and possibly the number of acres owned, a
number of maps also provide other details such as the type of land (forest
or farm), the nature of the crop production, the number (and sometimes
type) of dwellings, and the location of other important structures such as
roads (with their next destination indicated), churches, and court houses.
With the data provided by plat maps, often including in the township,
section, and range number possibilities for particular areas of land, the
researcher can seek additional information through deed and tax records. It
is important to remember that historically, families of like ethnic groups
tended to migrate together, travel together, and settle together. So once
one had found an ancestor on a plat map, "looking around" a little for
individuals of the same surname and individuals who may belong to
collateral lines or share the same village of origin in the old country is
a wise activity in which to engage.
Maps which evidence county boundary changes can be vital information
sources when genealogists are seeking out county records. There is an
ongoing series of maps being published under the title of "Atlas of
Historical County Boundaries" that is quite extraordinary. A project of the
Newberry Library and being published by Charles Scribner's Sons of New
York, the goal is to have one such compilation for each state. The state
volumes published to date detail the development of each county, both in
narrative form and by map. A separate map is provided for each major change
in a county's boundary. In the Indiana volume, for example, fourteen
different maps are provided to detail the development of Knox County. These
details regarding county boundary changes can open entire new vistas of
research for those who may have been confining their record search too
narrowly.
A similar collection of maps quite useful for genealogists is the "Map
Guide to the U. S. Federal Censuses, 1790-1920" by William Thorndale and
William Dollarhide. While not as detailed at the series described above, it
does provide one with an alphabetical listing by state and then maps by
federal census year for all the censuses through 1920. This can assist in
orienting one's research when census information is being sought for a time
period when a particular county did not exist.
When searching through census records for larger cities in unindexed census
years, another type of map -- the ward map -- can prove to be quite useful.
Ward maps typically delineate the boundaries of all the wards for a
particular city during a specific year. Thus, if one has to search in the
city of Indianapolis, Indiana in the 1870 census, it would be useful to
actually look in the 1870 Indianapolis city directory for the individual,
record his street address, and then locate that street address on the
1871/2 ward map for Indianapolis. Finding a particular ward in an unindexed
census by scanning the page headers, and then searching through that ward
for a particular individual is much faster than having to look through an
entire city for that same person. This research method can also be employed
when we have reason to believe that an individual is in a particular census
year in a larger city but does not show up in the index.
Many ward maps can be found as supplemental pages in the front or back of
numerous city directories. Most public libraries have city directories for
the cities in which they are located as well as surrounding towns and
villages. State libraries typically have very robust collections of city
directories, either in print or on microfilm, for the cities within their
respective states. Some ward maps can simply be found as part of
institutional cartographic collections. Still other such maps may be found
reprinted in compilations such as E. Kay Kirkham's "A Handy Guide to
Record-Searching in the Larger Cities of the United States." A research
note: While it is true that ward boundaries change, when using ward maps in
conjunction with census research typically finding a ward map within a
couple of years of the census year does prove to be beneficial.
Some of the most interesting and perhaps unusual maps genealogists can use
are fire insurance maps. One of the most commonly known sets of these maps
are simply called the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps. These maps were drawn
with incredible detail, indicating such things as street size, major
composition or construction of all buildings (e.g. wood, brick,
cinder-block, etc.) keyed by color, the number of floors in each structure
as well as the street address of each structure. By the mid-twentieth
century, fire insurance maps had been compiled for more than ten thousand
cities in the United States, most being the larger, metropolitan areas.
Many cities still have such maps produced today.
Fire insurance maps can provide a variety of assistance to the genealogist.
First, because of their detail, one can use them to determine which new
house numbers correspond to particular old dwellings when a community or
city re-numbers. One can also create a list of organizations in the area
which may have been frequented by a potential ancestor. Such organizations
may include churches, schools, laundries, groceries, department stores,
lumber yards, and the like. By researching the organizational records of
those entities, one may uncover new evidence and clues regarding a family's
past. And certainly urban growth and how that growth affected neighborhoods
and regions of a particular city can be evidenced in these fire insurance
maps.
Many fire insurance maps have been microfilmed by private publishing
companies. Their large size can make them a bit challenging to use a
microtext format but there are few other options for the researcher who
cannot travel to the locations where originals available. The local public
library and the local historical society are the two best places to check
in most communities for copies of fire insurance maps. Also, the state
libraries in most states tend to have fairly extensive collections of fire
insurance maps on microfilm for their respective states. It may also be
possible for researchers to have some of these maps interlibrary loaned to
their local libraries from the Center for Research Libraries in Chicago.
The Internet is providing the genealogist with many opportunities to
explore new map sources. The number and variety of these maps is truly
amazing. The Federation of Eastern European Family History Societies has a
wonderful map room on their site. A researcher can view and download actual
copies of nineteenth century European maps. The GenWeb projects worldwide
are also providing enhanced access to map indices if not the maps
themselves. One can see the 50,000 most common U. S. surnames mapped for
the 1850, 1880, and 1920 censuses as well as the 1990s phone books on yet
another site. The National Atlas of Canada is available online, offering
some interesting search options.
For researchers concentrating on the United States, the TIGER (short for
Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing) mapping
systems of the U. S. Census Bureau can provide a wealth of information.
This system is a huge "connect-the-dots" database, which can be used to
create maps that have customized amounts of detail. (See "Understanding the
Census: A Guide for Marketers, Planners, Grant Writers and Other Data
Users" by Michael R. Lavin, p. 186-189.) The "Virginia TIGER/Line Data
Browser," available at the Virginia Digital Map Library site, allows one to
select a county of interest and then further select the type of details the
online map should display. Some of the features that can be selected for
detailing include four different types of roads, railroad lines, military
installations, religious institutions, schools, and cemeteries. It's almost
like having one's own research map created. Once the customized map is
launched from the digital map site, there are additional zooming features
available to pinpoint many of the features more accurately. Printing a
customized TIGER map and using it in conjunction with a political map for
the same area can truly enhance research opportunities in a particular
area. More and more of these kinds of maps are available on the Internet.
There are a number of excellent publications to assist the researcher in
becoming familiar with maps as a significant part of genealogical research.
Among the group of the best publications is a compilation by E. Wade Hone
entitled, "Land & Property Research in the United States." An impressive
tome of more than five hundred pages, this work equips one with much
information about various types and uses on maps. The second edition of
"The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy" (Szucs & Luebking, 1997)
also contains a useful chapter on "land and property records."
Mapping one's ancestors can be a most useful and exciting way of ensuring
that all available data for a particular individual is discovered and
incorporated into the family story.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
"Rand McNally Commercial Atlas and Marketing Guide" (Chicago, IL: Rand
McNally & Company)
http://www.randmcnally.com/home/index.htm
"Map Guide to the U.S. Federal Censuses, 1790-1920," by William Thorndale
and William Dollarhide, (Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1987)
http://shop.ancestry.com/ancestry/mapguidtousf.html
"A Handy Guide to Record-Searching in the Larger Cities of the United
States," by E. Kay Kirkham (Logan, UT: Everton Publishers, Inc., 1974.)
"Understanding the Census: A Guide for Marketers, Planners, Grand Writers
and Other Data Users," by Michael R. Lavin, (Kenmore, NY: Epoch Books,
Inc., 1996)
"Land & Property Research in the United States," by E. Wade Hone (Salt Lake
City, UT: Ancestry, Inc., 1997)
http://shop.ancestry.com/ancestry/lanandpropre1.html
"The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy," edited by Loretto D.
Szucs, and Sandra H. Luebking, (Salt Lake City, UT: Ancestry, Inc., 1997)
http://shop.ancestry.com/ancestry/source.html
Best Wishes,
Juliana Smith, Editor, Ancestry Daily News
Joel White, Associate Editor
Please feel free to circulate this newsletter to other genealogy
enthusiasts! We hope that you will also credit the Daily News as the
source. To subscribe to this newsletter, visit
http://www.ancestry.com/whatsnew.htm
jbass(a)digital.net
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Data Managed by beautiful daughter Becky Bass Bonner and me, Josephine
Lindsay Bass
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