A Genealogist's Guide to Using Maps and Geography The truth about genealogy is that, although you might believe it has something to do with history, it actually has something more to do with geography. Though of course the names and dates on your family tree are the bread and butter of genealogy, the location of the records is what reveals them. And how better to learn about location than with maps! Maps are a crucial tool in learning about your family history. They can show you how to find a courthouse, where a grave is located, or where an ancestral homestead might be. But maps are much more than that - they can reveal intimate details about the lives of your ancestors. Walk the roads that your forefathers walked with maps! Maps will reveal the clues that you need to locate ancestors that suddenly "disappear." This book will teach you how to use maps to: Find the roads, rivers, and trains that your great-grandfathers used to travel across the country and see where they might have relocated. Discover the ever-shifting boundaries of territories, counties, and towns and learn the alternate places where records might be found. Locate places that no longer exist and uncover the long-lost homes, schools, farms, and more where your ancestors spent their time. Become familiar with all the different kinds of maps, from military to topographic, and how they can assist you in your research. Walking with Your Ancestors is the perfect guide to the under-utilized revelations that are just waiting for you in maps, atlases, and gazetteers. Find out about these fascinating snapshots of history and what they can tell you about the lives of your ancestors today!

Genealogy has become a widely popular pursuit, as millions of people now research their family history, trace their forebears, attend family reunions and travel to ancestral home sites. Geographers have much to contribute to the serious study of the family history phenomenon. Land records, maps and even GIS are increasingly used by genealogical investigators. As a cultural practice, it encompasses peoples' emotional attachments to ancestral places and is widely manifest on the ground as personal heritage travel. Family history research also has significant potential to challenge accepted geographical views of migration, ethnicity, socio-economic class and place-based identities. This volume is possibly the first ever book to address the geographical and scholarly aspects of this increasingly popular social phenomenon. It highlights tools and information sources used by geographers and their application to family history research. Furthermore, it examines family history as a socio-cultural practice, including the activities of tourism, archival research and DNA testing.

Journey to the big city! Explore your ancestors' hometowns! This book guides you through American history by looking at the United States' sixteen most populous and historically influential cities, such as New York, Chicago, Boston, New Orleans, and Baltimore. Each section features beautiful, full-color maps published at crucial points in each city's history, tracing its growth and development from its founding to the early 1900s. Use the maps to find your ancestor's home, trace your ancestor's walk to work, and identify the streets and buildings from your ancestor's everyday life. Delve further into the past with a quick-reference timeline of key dates from each city's history. You’ll also discover easy genealogy research tips for finding local birth, marriage, and death records; federal and state censuses; and city directories. The book features: • More than 130 full-color historical maps of sixteen important cities, including New York, Houston, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles • Timelines highlighting the most important moments in each city's history • Lists of city-specific genealogy websites and resources for records that will help you discover your family history • An index with instructions on viewing online versions of each map, allowing you to zoom in for more detail or use them with programs like Google Earth Whether your family hails from the streets of Brooklyn or the hills of San Francisco, this atlas--designed especially for genealogists--will help you better understand your city-dwelling ancestors.

Journey to the Old Country From Ireland to Italy, Portugal to Poland, Germany to Greece, and everywhere in between, explore your ancestors' European homelands through more than 200 gorgeous reproductions of 18th-century maps, 19th-century and early 20th-century maps. These full-color period maps--covering the peak years of European immigration to America--will help you understand changing boundaries in ancestral countries, and inform your search for genealogical records. Inside you'll find: • Historical maps of the European continent showing how national borders evolved over three centuries • Detailed country maps illustrating key geographical units--provinces, counties, regions, cities and more • Time lines of important events in each country's history • Lists of administrative divisions by country for easy reference • A complete index to aid in viewing maps of interest in greater detail online This country-by-country atlas is an indispensable tool for European genealogy. Put your ancestral origins in geographical context, unravel the boundary changes that trip up genealogists, and envision the old country as your ancestors knew it. The book is also a valuable reference for teachers, homeschooling parents and anyone with an interest in European history. Time travel across the continent with the Family Tree Historical Maps Book: Europe.