{"id":9692,"date":"2022-04-25T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-25T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9692"},"modified":"2022-05-11T07:49:31","modified_gmt":"2022-05-11T11:49:31","slug":"where-in-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9692","title":{"rendered":"Where in the World?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dozens of maps help illustrate the family history I\u2019m working on, and I\u2019ve learned a lot from exploring them. Let me share a few of the more interesting ones. Apologies for my rather inartful use of the highlighter to indicate where relatives lived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

General Reference Maps<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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These three maps (Dorchester County, Maryland; Bastrop County, Texas; and Limestone County, Alabama) provide the general lay of the land in these areas. Bastrop County is where a lot of movies are filmed; Smithville is named for my great-great grandfather. I selected maps with an old-fashioned look about them, but most of their information is probably still correct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Topographical Maps<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You\u2019re looking at the hilly, creek-ridden countryside of Virginia\u2019s Franklin County, slightly southeast of Roanoke. The vertical notation \u201cStandiford\u2019s Creek\u201d along the bottom, shows where my ancestors lived. This area is now underwater due to the construction of the Smith Mountain Dam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Historical Maps<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Historical maps show where things \u201cused to be.\u201d On the cattle trails map at left, the farthest west vertical trail was the Goodnight-Loving trail, named for Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving, models for the characters in Larry McMurtry\u2019s Lonesome Dove<\/em>. In colonial days, \u201chundreds\u201d were administrative divisions of the land and population containing about 100 households. My family lived in Ceil County, Maryland\u2019s Octorara Hundred. The detailed 1561 London map<\/a> on the right is a real find. It\u2019s interactive, so you can select what you want to see. The Great Fire of London began in a bakery on Pudding Lane, just north of the church (in purple).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thematic Maps<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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These fascinating examples show the ethnicities of people living in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the original extent of Indian lands in the southern United States, and key locations in Salem, Mass., linked to the 1692 witch trials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cadastral Maps<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When you find your ancestor on one of these, you\u2019ve struck gold. My family members appear on these maps of New Haven, Conn. (1641), Barbados (late 1600s), and southwest Virginia (both Howe and Hoge, 1777).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further Research<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re interested in finding maps like these\u2014either for a project or just for general interest\u2014the Library of Congress\u2019s online collection<\/a> is a helpful place to start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dozens of maps help illustrate the family history I\u2019m working on, and I\u2019ve learned a lot from exploring them. Let me share a few of the more interesting ones. Apologies for my rather inartful use of the highlighter to indicate … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Finding your family on old maps. They've really added to my family history!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[41,266,60,104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-genealogy","category-history","category-storytelling","category-the-morgue"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2wk","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9692"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9706,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9692\/revisions\/9706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}