Maps

United States

Land and Property

Maps

Maps are used to locate the places where your ancestors lived. They identify political boundaries, names of places, geographical features, cemeteries, churches, and migration routes. Historical maps are especially useful for finding communities that no longer exist.

Maps are available from the National Archives, the Library of Congress, county agencies, and other libraries and historical societies.

Maps are an important source to locate the places where your ancestors lived. They help you see the neighboring towns and geographic features of the area from which your ancestor came.

Maps are also helpful in locating places, parishes, geographical features, transportation routes, and proximity to other towns. Historical maps are especially useful for understanding boundary changes.

Maps are published either individually or as an atlas. An atlas is a bound collection of maps. Maps may also be included in gazetteers, guidebooks, local histories, historical geographies, encyclopedias, and history texts.

Genealogical information in various 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 are 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.
• Boundary change maps show shifts in borders of townships, counties, states and territories over time.
• Census maps. Spelling errors by census takers often make ancestors hard to find. 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, which can usually be obtained for free from city and town chambers of commerce, show streets, government offices, courthouses, libraries, businesses, museum archives, and important landmarks. 
• City and town maps show detailed street information, addresses, rail and mass transit routes, and landmarks.
• 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.
• 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).