Mapping Rural and Urban Ancestors

As we bring our series of posts on prominent maps and mapping websites to a close, we want to mention two more important resources for genealogists. The first is a subscription website that may help you as you begin to collect more information on the locations in which your ancestors settled, especially if they were first landowners. Historygeo.com is a website that specializes in linking first landowners to maps so that you don’t have to do the plotting and linking yourself. It contains information on more than twelve million landowners in the thirty public land states, all linked to an interactive map, and, when you subscribe, you can personalize lists and add markers, migration routes, and other details of interest to you.

The site also contains a large collection of antique maps. You can browse the collection of all of the United States and some foreign countries, or you can search for exactly what you are looking for. 

The search function of the website is free and you may want to plug in some of your names to see if they show up. You will get a list of states and then, if you click a link, a list of counties where the names appear. The website also contains two lengthy tutorials (YouTube recordings) that you may want to watch to see if the collections are of relevance to you. There is currently no free trial, but you can subscribe for three months for $20, making it fairly easy to try the site out. In addition, some libraries, like St. Louis County Library, offer free access, so you should check with your local library.

As American cities grew in a rather topsy-turvy fashion during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, fires became more of a hazard, and many building owners relied on fire insurance to save them from financial disaster. Fire insurance companies needed detailed maps of the areas they were protecting so they knew how to assign payments. For many years, the insurance companies sent people to inspect every property and to assess its risk for fire, but with the rapid growth in cities, that became impractical. The need for a better system inspired Daniel Alfred Sanborn to create the Sanborn Map Company in 1866 and within fifty years, it became the largest of the companies producing fire insurance maps.

Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Saint Louis, Independent City, Missouri. Sanborn Map Company, Jul, 1907. Map. https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn04858_003/.

What is special about these maps is their incredible detail of urban areas throughout the United States. The maps were produced in full color and included all outbuildings, homes, businesses, and public building, all done to scale. If you are researching urban ancestors between 1866 and the mid-twentieth century, the Sanborn maps will provide you with a captivating look at the neighborhoods in which they lived. You can see the places where they shopped, worshipped, went to school, and enjoyed a bit of recreation, all in relation to their homes.

“HistoryGeo.com and Sanborn Maps: Rural and Urban Map Research” in the StLGS Fall Speaker Series

Sanborn maps are widely available online and StLGS Systems Director, Bob Goode, will explain how you can access them as well as how you can make the most of the HistoryGeo.com website in the last of the four lectures in the StLGS Fall Speaker Series, “Mapping Our Ancestors,” which will take place live via Zoom on Saturday, 16 October 2021. Bob will help you discover how these two resources can enhance your knowledge of your ancestors.

Three additional presentations round out our Speaker Series on maps: an introduction to the earliest American migration trails, an overview of federal land records, plat maps, and plat books, and a detailed look at the map collections on the Library of Congress website. The Fall Speaker Series is coming soon, and you won't want to miss it. You can register for this exciting day of lectures now on the StLGS website!

Mining the Maps in the Library of Congress

Genealogists love libraries! And our country’s biggest, best library is the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. This incredible national treasure acquires and catalogs our nation’s publications, administers the nation’s copyright program, and organizes and preserves archival material. It maintains a massive website to help researchers access its collections as well as a beautiful building where researchers can work if they are in the nation’s capital.

Migrating Westward: Federal Land

Many of our ancestors depended on the land for their livelihoods. Land provided food, shelter, and wealth. In the early days of the United States, land was used as payment for military service and as an inducement for westward migration. The land seemed limitless, and its resources lured settlers, explorers, and speculators ever onward through hazards and hardship.

Traveling in the U.S. via the Rivers

Migration has been part of this country’s history since its inception, and for the next few weeks, we will explore some ways you can learn more about your ancestors’ travels across North America, wherever and however they went. 

Perhaps you had ancestors who used the rivers to travel or to earn a living? If so, you will want to know about the Waterways Journal, 134 years old and “America’s oldest continuously published inland waterways trade magazine.” The Herman T. Pott National Inland Waterways Library, located in the Mercantile Library on the campus of the University of Missouri-St. Louis, has an extensive collection of these journals and related materials and has recently added even more. The publisher of the Waterways Journal has donated its research library and photo morgue to the library.

Does a Surname in Your Family Reflect an Ancestor’s Days of Labor? and Another Goodbye

This holiday weekend, meant to honor those who work, is a good time to think about where some of the surnames in our genealogy might have originated. Most genealogists know that early people had only given names. When communities were small, there likely was just one John and he lived near the church on a hill or one Mary, and she was little. However, by the time of the Middle Ages, villages had become more populated, and calling someone just John or Mary now became problematic. As a result, names became more specific so one person could be separated from another. Now, John’s name may have transitioned into John Churchill and Mary might have become Mary Little, to distinguish them from the John near the mouth of two rivers (John Rivers) or the Mary who had long white hair (Mary Whitehead). This didn’t just happen to English names, of course. You will see the same thing occurring in most other languages.

StLGS September Genealogy Meetings and Events

Although we were hoping that we could begin meeting in person again in September, with the increase in COVID-19 cases in our area, the very safest thing to do is to complete our 2021 schedule online. We hope you will join us for these exciting family history events.

In addition to our monthly meeting, German SIG meeting, and an online class, we are pleased to announce our Fall Speaker Series, featuring a full day of lectures on "Mapping Our Ancestors" in America. Read on for details! 

Preparing for the 1950 Federal Census

During the past few weeks, the federal census has been back in the news for a variety of reasons. As genealogists, we know that the United States conducts a census of its citizens every ten years. The first federal census began after the Revolutionary War, in 1790, and, with the exception of the 1890 census, which was largely destroyed because of fire damage and neglect, we have a fairly complete set of records covering about 230 years. Genealogists also know how valuable the censuses are in compiling our family histories. Questions on family origin, immigration and naturalization, education, wealth, property, and relationships often reveal a surprising amount of information and help us solve innumerable problems.