DJ, I'm sure there are many more maps on Germany out there, and your descriptions made me think of a map I ordered via the internet before I found the one previously described. An e-mail friend recommended the site as he was able to read through the German language, and I was at my very beginnings of not knowing anything. Fortunately he was there to walk me through the whole way, as I blindly ordered this map. However, he warned me that he wasn't sure how far of an area it would cover. Fortunately it did go as far north as Schutterwald and Ortenberg, but unfortunately it barely had reached Ebersweier, which was the only town I had done any research on at the time - and I wasn't even sure that was the right one. As I said, I was barely past the start line of my German research .... sound familiar, anyone? Anyway, the short end of the story is that this $6 map ended up costing me $15 because of all the shipping and transfer of funds expenses. Then how disappointed I was to find that it barely touched the area of Baden that I was searching for. So that map has since been stored away and forgotten until I read your e-mail. Pulling it out now, wiping off the dust, I was quite surprised to realize that Hohberg, Niederschopfheim, Oberschopfheim, Zunsweier, and all those other towns I've learned about since are there in large print for me to view. Yes, you are right. All that extra detail is really nice to study - even if all the little red squares don't match the exact number of houses in those towns! Now I'll have to get busy with my German dictionary to figure out what all the symbols mean. Carol -----Original Message----- From: djweber [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, October 09, 2005 8:39 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Ortenau] maps of Germany Carol, That Hammond map reminds of a smaller sized book/atlas which AAA had about ten years old. I didn't buy the AAA book/atlas and I have kicked myself since then. Today, there are so many map makers on-line including so many town Stadtplan sites that I probably could toss out the boxes of maps I have....but I won't. When I lived in Ohio, there was an outfit near Chicago which sold the Landesvermessungsamt maps. When I moved to Illinois, that company had moved to Utah and stopped handling the German maps. For an overall view, I have a 1937 Andrees Hand-Atlas which covers better than 90% of the towns in Germany but to get an idea of how that Sauer line moved from Zusenhofen to Urloffen to Oensbach to Grossweier with side trips into a number of other towns, these 1 : 25 000 Topographische Karte are excellent. If I needed any more of the Baden area, the only way I could obtain them now would be to find some contact in Germany who would be willing to obtain them and to be certain that I supplied him with sufficient Euros for the maps, the mailing costs and his time. Agreed these are not historic maps; the earliest ones I have are 1985 views and I obtained a few more of the 2003 issues but you can count the number of buildings in each town, the detail is so exact. There is a company in western Canada who will supply 1 : 25 000 maps but only of eastern Germany, mostly the lost provinces and those maps are historic to a point in time. Maps are so important in our searches, particularly in our Baden needs. Our Ortenau towns are so close to or are in the Black Forest and our ancestors were not mountain goats so the topographic views are necessary so we can figure out how they met other people, how they traded with others, how they moved to another town....it helps us understand them and what they did. djweber [email protected] ==== DEU-BAD-ORTENAU Mailing List ==== List your surnames at the Ortenau Search web site < http://ortenau.genealogy-bw.de/search/ >. ============================== Search the US Census Collection. Over 140 million records added in the last 12 months. Largest online collection in the world. Learn more: http://www.ancestry.com/s13965/rd.ashx