I am sending this along for folks unfamiliar with Ancestry. Sara ====================================================== Ancestry HomeTown Daily "A Daily Dose of Genealogy" www.ancestry.com November 14, 1997 In this issue: - Database of the Day - Today's New Maps - From The Source: The Geographic Dimension ================================================= Database of the Day (Free for 10 Days!) Illinois Census Returns of 1820 This is a companion work to the 1810 Federal and the 1818 Territorial censuses published in the Illinois Historical Collections. This Illinois state census lists the population by counties in 1820 and contains notes comparing discrepancies between names as written in the 1818 Territorial, the 1820 State, and the 1820 Federal censuses. There are over 25,000 records which indicate the following information: the name of the head of the family, number of males under 21, number of males age 21 and up, number of females under 18, and number of females age 18 and up. Bibliography - Pease, Theodore Calvin. Illinois Census Returns of 1820. Springfield, IL: Trustees of Illinois State Historical Library, 1934. To search this database, go to: http://www.ancestry.com/home/free/today.htm OR http://www.ancestry.com/ancestry/search.asp ================================================ Today's New Maps Ancestry is currently adding 3 maps every working day to their web site. One of the three maps is available for free for 10 days, after which it will be moved to the subscription area. The remaining two maps are available in the subscription area. Today's new maps are: - Ecclesiastical Map of France - FREE! - Map of Attica - Westward Development of U.S. 1790-1900 To view these maps, go to: http://www.ancestry.com/ancestry/maps.asp and look under the FREE MAPS section of the page for the Free map of the day. ================================================ >From The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy Edited by Loretto Dennis Szucs and Sandra Hargreaves Luebking The Geographic Dimension Page 17 Genealogical research requires knowledge of the times and places inhabited by our families. A good example of the importance of this knowledge was cited in the introductory pages of the original edition of The Source: ?one census might have John Smith born in Mississippi in 1813, while another might say Alabama. In this case, you would need to know that Alabama was created from Mississippi Territory in 1817. A death certificate might list a nonexistent Yellow Bush, Mississippi, but a check of Mississippi place-names might produce Yalobusha County. The problem of shifting political boundaries should be obvious: a householder can appear in various counties or New England towns without ever having moved. The solution in such cases is to find a guide to those changing political boundaries; those containing maps are especially helpful. Maps, Atlases, and Locality Collections You might use maps to locate an ancestral home or to find a reference to a town that no longer exists. In "Gazetteers: Identifying Research Localities," Ancestry 12 (4) (July/August 1994), David Thackery notes that "Genealogy is, among other things, an exercise in geography. Successful research often hinges on identifying the locality in which one's ancestors lived. Once we know the locality, we are in a position to consult the records and histories for the area in an effort to piece together the lives of our forebears." Pinpointing modern place-names can begin with Frank R. Abate, ed., Omni Gazetteer of the United States of America, 11 vols. (Detroit: Omnigraphics, 1991). The work is subtitled Providing Name, Location, and Identification for Nearly 1,500,000 Populated Places and Geographic Features in the Fifty States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Territories. Modern towns can also be sought in Bullinger's Postal and Shipper's Guide to the United States and Canada (Westwood, N.J.: Bullinger's, 1982) or American Places Dictionary: A Guide to 45,000 Populated Places, Natural Features, and Other Places in the U.S., 4 vols. (Detroit: Omnigraphics, 1994). The latter details all of the "populated places" in the United States and is arranged by county within state chapters. Every place that is incorporated or has a functioning government -nearly 40,000 cities, towns, townships, and boroughs-is contained in the four regional volumes for the Northeast, South, Midwest, and West. Volume 4 also contains a national index and entries of interest covering Native American reservations, military bases, and major geographical features. Maps, atlases, and gazetteers are necessary tools for any genealogist. For a broad introduction to types of maps, see Joel Makower, ed., The Map Catalog: Every Kind of Map and Chart on Earth and Even Some Above It, 2nd ed. (New York: Vintage Books, 1992). Genealogists doing much U.S. research should at least own an inexpensive atlas such as the Rand McNally's annual Road Atlas. Locate on maps each place-name in a research problem and relate the place to nearby rivers, mountains, valleys, large towns and cities, ports, and adjoining political jurisdictions. In one family research project, the ancestor had reportedly moved back and forth between three towns-one in Missouri, one in Kansas, and one in Nebraska. While some researchers would simply pick a state and begin the chase, a smarter genealogist would start with maps and discover that the three towns lay in adjoining counties where the states came together. In fact, the three towns were within ten miles of each other. Suddenly the problem shifted from a vague project spanning three states and became a neighborhood puzzle that happened to straddle three state lines. No long-distance migrations had occurred. Maps can be either topographical or historical in nature, though either type can show cultural features such as the town and creek names that are so important to genealogical research. Sheet maps can be more difficult to use than books and manuscripts. They are hard to photocopy because they are large; libraries find them inconvenient to store and retrieve; and their titles often fail to accurately convey their contents. You may quail when faced with a score of maps, each listed in a catalog as "Map of Connecticut"; poring over two hundred pages of bibliography listing pre-1900 Connecticut maps may not narrow your choices much unless the editor supplies descriptive notes on map contents. The map user must accept such frustrations as normal. Major map collections are listed by state and thereunder by city in David A. Cobb, ed., Guide to U.S. Map Resources (Chicago: American Library Association, 1990). Cobb provides a subject index to specialized content, such as collections with many land ownership maps and railroad maps. Atlases are bound collections of maps. Atlases may also include charts and illustrations, tables, and detailed explanations of the maps featured. The types of atlases vary. They include thematic atlases (those which pertain to a specific event, such as the Civil War) as well as location atlases. A useful reference to the latter is Norman J. W. Thrower, "The County Atlases of the United States," Surveying and Mapping 21 (1961): 365-73. This article identifies parts of the United States for which county atlases are available. The small scale of a road atlas necessarily omits hamlets and most rivers. The Rand McNally Commercial Atlas, found in nearly all U.S. public libraries, supplies a somewhat greater scale. For much larger scales there are the United States Geological Survey (USGS) maps, which show just about every named cluster of houses. Likewise, many states and even counties have published place-name guides. Several national gazetteers that were published in the nineteenth century list many small towns that have since vanished or been renamed. Figure 1-6 is an 1876 map of Allen County, Indiana, from such a gazetteer. To discover the place- name guides and gazetteers that do include smaller communities, use the catalogs of research libraries, including the microfiche/ computer catalog of the Family History Library. The catalog is also available at LDS family history centers across the United States. Also see Richard B. Sealock, Bibliography of Place-Names Literature: United States and Canada (Chicago: American Library Association, 1982). (To be continued on Monday) ********* Ancestry's "The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy" is available for purchase for $49.95 by visiting Ancestry's website http://www2.viaweb.com/ancestry/ or by calling Ancestry Sales at 1-800-ANCESTRY.