By Philip Hoehn
HistoryGeo is a useful tool for finding ancestral names on old
maps, along with related information such as land records. It has two parts:
First Landowners
Project. You can search the surname
of more than 8.8 million original landowners in most of the 30 public land
states plus Texas. The number of states
covered is growing and currently includes Alabama, Arkansas, California,
Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota,
Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Utah and
Wisconsin. The results lead to detailed Bureau of Land Management-General Land
Office township plat maps showing properties and highlighting the landowner
name. It can also be informative to see
names of surrounding landowners who could well be relatives. While viewing the map you can click to view
parcel details plus links to the boundary history of the county, the area on
Google Maps, the BLM-GLO source, and an image of the actual land patent
document. You can also search by county
name. Recently added to the expanding
coverage are California, Florida and Oregon.
Antique Maps
Collection. This is an expanding collection of some 4,000
maps from various sources, areas and time periods. Most of the maps are searchable by
surname. Results take you to a zoomable
map of the relevant area. Searching can
also be done by map name, for example a city or county name, and by latitude
and longitude.
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| Sample from Antique Map collection available on HistoryGeo |
To take full advantage of various searching and navigation
features, you are encouraged to view the two informative, if somewhat folksy,
tutorials available at www.historygeo.com
HistoryGeo is available on-site on all of our Library’s public computers.
The Library’s subscription to this database is provided through
generosity of member Sally Houston.
Copyright © 2014 by Ellen Fernandez-Sacco, California Genealogical Society and Library.
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