United States Maps

United States of America &gt; United States 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.

Genealogical information shown on 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.


 * County, Parish, or Province maps show roads, cemeteries, landmarks, local boundaries, and physical features.
 * 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 plans often demystify the renaming of streets, parks, neighborhoods, and other features.
 * Sanborn insurance 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.
 * 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.
 * Land maps (cadastral maps) and plat books show boundaries of land plots, and usually the owners' names.
 * Topographic or geologic maps show terrain, natural resources (forests, mining resources), and features that affected travel (rivers, rapids, canals, mountains, mountain passes, canyons).
 * 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.

Atlases
An atlas is a bound collection of maps. It often contains historical and geographical information for a county or state. Collections of maps and atlases are available at numerous libraries and historical societies. Many county atlases that show the names of landowners and are usually based on county plat maps (see the "Land and Property") have been published.

Public and university libraries have excellent national atlases


 * The University of Texas, Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection has online state maps as well as:


 * Maps of the United States (Country Maps)
 * Historical Maps of the United States
 * Historical Maps of U.S. Cities
 * National Atlas of the United States of America (1970)
 * National Parks, Monuments and Historic Sites Maps
 * State Map Collections State, city, historical and national park maps by state
 * State Maps with County Boundaries U.S. Bureau of the Census (1990)
 * Topographic Maps 1:250,000
 * U.S. Territories Maps


 * The Alan M. Voorhees Collection at the Library of Virginia has maps, charts and atlases. The images online are thumbnails rather than usable copies, but larger prints can be ordered for a fee.

City Ward Maps
The Library of Congress has detailed ward maps of major cities. These show the census districts and political divisions of large cities. Valuable finding aids for City Ward maps is on microfilm found at the Family History Library.


 * Library of Congress Digitized Map Collection is a large online collection of digitized maps -- cities and towns, military battles and more.
 * Ward Maps of United States Cities A description of each map and a chart that shows which maps to use with each U.S. census is in: Ward Maps of United States Cities: A Selective Checklist of Pre-1900 Maps in the Library of Congress

Fire Insurance Maps
Sanborn maps ($) 1867-1970 have been digitized. This collection has more than 660,000 maps of 12,000+ cities and towns, and includes a map key.

GPS Coordinates

 * USGS Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) yields latitude and longitude, current county, and elevation for towns and many geographic features.

Historical Maps and Atlases
These atlases show the growth and development of the nation or a state, including boundaries, migration routes, settlement patterns, military campaigns, American Indian reservations, and other historical information. Excellent national historical atlases are the Atlas of American History The American Heritage Pictorial Atlas of United States History and The Shaping of America


 * Images of Early Maps on the Web (free) by Maphistory.info links to collections containing tens of thousands of historic maps online. Organized by state.
 * The David Rumsey Map Collection (free) contains an extensive online collection of historical atlases, maps, and other antique cartographic material.
 * The Norman B Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library has 200,000 historic maps and 5,000 atlases. The geographical focus of these maps, atlases, and globes is the World, Europe, and America, with particular attention to New England, Massachusetts, and Boston from the 15th century to the present day.
 * The Library of Congress American Memory. Most of the items in this site are documented in Maps and Charts of North America and the West Indies, 1750-1789: A Guide to the Collections in the Library of Congress compiled by John R. Sellers and Patricia Molen van Ee in 1981.
 * HistoricMapWorks.com ($) offers over 800,000 online historic maps from the 18th and early 19th centuries at $0.99 per download. Searchable by place name, family name, or street address.

Land Ownership Maps

 * Government or commercial agencies have created numerous maps showing the names of land owners in an area. These are often called “cadastral” maps. They sometimes include other helpful details such as churches, cemeteries, and roads. An inventory of many of the land ownership maps can be found at the Land Ownership Maps: A Checklist of Nineteenth Century United States County Maps in the Library of Congress and in Land Ownership Maps
 * For more information about land ownership, see Land and Property.
 * Pennsylvania: Many free, downloadable 19-century PA wall maps and atlases showing landowners have been posted by Ancestor Tracks

Boundary Changes

 * An animated map of the boundaries of the United States and the Several States, shows the states and territories as they formed. A settlement map is also available.
 * Maps of county boundaries as they exist today and as they existed in each census year through 1920. This source also includes helpful information about the availability of census records.


 * Maps of modern county boundaries are also in both The Handy Book for Genealogists and Ancestry's Red Book. These are available at most libraries and Family History Centers.


 * Maps and an index of townships and other present-day civil boundaries are in Township Atlas of the United States


 * Detailed maps and legal histories of county formations and changes are found in Historical Atlas and Chronology of County Boundaries, 1788-1980. The states included are Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
 * The published states of Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, and Pennsylvania are found in the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries The Family History Library has this work, but each volume is cataloged separately.

Also see the "Historical Geography" page for further help on tracing the histories of counties and their boundaries.

County Boundaries

 * County boundaries changed often over the years, these maps show the county boundaries for each of the census years.
 * The Original Cleartype Business Control Atlas, is a basic atlas that shows state and county boundaries, county seats, all places of 1,000 population or more, and some places with fewer than 1,000.
 * The US Census Bureau 2003 US State and County Boundries Map. This is a map that shows the entire United States broken down into counties.  You can zoom in and read the county names, even counties in neighboring states.

Frontier Boundaries

 * To see how the United States frontiers grew into formal territory, go to a printable map of United States territorial acquisitions.

Military Maps

 * The USMA Library's Special Collections and Archives has Civil War Maps, Colonial and Federal Era Maps, Maps of North America from the Colonial, Revolutionary and Federalist eras.
 * Battle maps Some maps used are from "Battle Maps of the Civil War" by: Harold J. Holmquest.

Plat Maps
The county or town offices that maintain land and property records often have plat books containing maps of property boundaries and land ownership within the county. Also see Land and Property section for information about the federal township plats. Federal Land Patent Records and Associated Survey Plat Maps has access to federal land conveyance records. A great explanation of a Plat Map is found at Wikipedia.

State Maps
The US GenWeb is a great resource for maps.


 * United States Digital Map Library from The USGenWeb
 * State and County Maps
 * Sixty-seven maps from Indian Land Cessions in the United States.


 * United States Maps has maps for each of the individual states, territories and outlying areas.


 * The National Archives—Cartographic Branch and the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress have significant collections of a variety of maps, including land ownership, railroad, and fire insurance maps. Several catalogs and inventories of these collections are listed in the Place Search of the Family History Library Catalog under UNITED STATES - MAPS - BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Topography
Topographical maps show physical and man-made features, such as creeks, hills, roads, cemeteries, and churches.


 * The United States has been divided into sections called quadrangles by the United States Geological Survey . The USGS has produced highly detailed topographical maps showing physical and manmade features in each quadrangle. These maps are available at most university libraries
 * Topographic Quadrangles of the United States maps were originally published from 1884 to 1983. The maps are arranged by the name of the quadrangle within each state. States are not in alphabetical order. Use a state map to find the quadrangle number. Then find the number in the state's map list to learn the name of the quadrangle.
 * You can purchase copies of topographical maps from the U.S. Department of the Interior

Research helps
The Family History Library has a small collection of loose maps of historical value, and a fine collection of printed historical atlases. These are listed in the Place Search of the Family History Library Catalog under:


 * UNITED STATES - MAPS
 * [STATE] - MAPS [STATE], [COUNTY] - MAPS
 * [STATE], [COUNTY], [TOWN] - MAPS.


 * The Guide to U.S. Map Resources is an excellent inventory of the map holdings of 3,000 libraries and historical societies.


 * The The Map Catalog has information about maps and how to obtain them.