Folks, I have recently pulled together what I have found for locating on a map where my ancestors lived. It is very useful to me and I wanted to pass it on to other researchers. The 3 main sites I use are:the US Census Bureau Tiger Map to actually look at the location, the GNIS to find the location and the Montana State Ecology Department's TRS data page. The links are: Tiger Map: http://tiger.census.gov/ GNIS: http://mapping.usgs.gov/www/gnis/gnisform.html TRS-Data: http://www.esg.montana.edu/gl/trs-data.html I often just use GNIS to find the place names listed in the Great Registers. GNIS can often (but not always) find defunct place names. I then take that data which gives the latitude and longitude in degrees, minutes, seconds and convert it to decimal degrees for the US Census Bureau Tiger Map. For the Tiger Map, North and East should be entered as positive numbers while South and West are entered as negative numbers. For instance - looking at Mariposa (city), GNIS gives its latitude as 372906N and longitude as 1195755W. The lat. is actually 37 degrees, 29 mins and 06 seconds North and the lon. is 119 degrees, 57 mins and 55 seconds West. (One should always work from left to right to pull out the seconds and minutes (which are always given as two numbers). To convert, do the same as you would with a clock (but note the sign!): 372906N = 37:29:06 = 37 + ( 29 + 06 / 60 ) / 60 = 37.485 1195755W = -119:57:55 = - ( 119 + ( 57 + 55/60 ) / 60 ) = -119.96528 If you enter these as under "Enter precise coordinates:" on the Tiger map page ( lower left hand corner on web page http://tiger.census.gov/cgi-bin/mapbrowse-tbl ), you will find the map centered on Mariposa. (You might want to check on the City Labels and Cities/Towns boxes in the green area to the left of the map). This is how you can locate an area if GNIS has the location. What if GNIS does not have the location or you want a precise location of where your ancestor lived? Well, I ran across a nifty little site at a Montana University that will help you out there. If you go to: http://www.esg.montana.edu/gl/trs-data.html you may enter your ancestors Township, Range, Section and the meridian that it is based on (probably Mount Diablo for us folks) and it will not only give you the Latitude and Longitude (already converted to decimal degrees no less!) but will also give you the nearest "feature" (geographic feature, dam, etc.) to the location (but in meters - to convert to something more useful, divide by 1000 (to get kilometers) and multiply by 0.62137 to get miles). Have fun everyone! - Mike