U.S. State & County Boundry Maps
and Antique Maps & Atlases

Being familiar with the area in which an ancestor lived is essential to family history research. By using maps, you can learn more about the name, location, and history of the city or town in which your ancestors lived. This, in turn, can help you uncover new record sources for your ancestors. A number of different maps may be useful in your family history research, depending upon your specific research needs and goals:

• Political Maps - The type of map most genealogists are initially familiar with is a standard political map that is found in most commercial atlases. Political maps typically indicate locations of city, towns, and counties, and may have some physical features such as rivers, streams, and lakes. The hallmark of a good political map is an easy to use, comprehensive index. Political maps can be key to a researcher's quest to find the counties which contain the records of an important ancestral town.
• Topographical Maps - While topographical maps tend to be less used by many genealogists, their importance should not be minimized. Topographical maps, also known as relief maps, typically show significant physical features as well as contexting the areas being detailed with the locations of major towns and often county boundary lines. These maps generally not only detail a hilly or mountainous region but may also, typically through the use of colors and shading, provide the researcher with some idea of how high the mountains are and how steep the peaks. Also there tends to be an accurate and thorough detailing of bodies of water, occasionally even including the direction of flow on rivers and streams.
        A good topographical map for an area of ancestral research can cause one to view potential locations of records in a completely different light. Not infrequently a researcher will have a whole new picture of an ancestor's homestead when placing the property in the context of its physical surroundings. And the county seat of the neighboring county may just become a most logical place to check for some vital, church and other records as it was infinitely easier to cross an invisible county boundary line than even a small range of mountains during some time periods in one’s family’s history.
• Land Maps, Surveys, & Plat Maps - Historic plat and land ownership maps of all sorts can be a boon for family historians. As their name implies, these maps indicate who owned parcels of land in a particular geographic area for a specific time period. Usually land ownership maps were done on a county-by-county basis, but that is not always necessarily the case. While many of these ownership maps simply provide the property owner’s name and possibly the number of acres owned, a number of maps also provide other details such as the type of land (forest or farm), the nature of the crop production, the number (and sometimes type) of dwellings, and the location of other important structures such as roads (with their next destination indicated), churches, and court houses.
        With the data provided by plat maps, often including in the township, section, and range number possibilities for particular areas of land, the researcher can seek additional information through deed and tax records. It is important to remember that historically families of like ethnic groups tended to migrate together, travel together, and settle together. So once one had found an ancestor on a plat map, "looking around" a little for individuals of the same surname and individuals who may belong to collateral lines or share the same village of origin in the old country is a wise activity in which to engage.
• Ward Maps - When searching through census records for larger cities in unindexed census years, another type of map—the ward map—can prove to be quite useful. Ward maps typically delineate the boundaries of all the wards for a particular city during a specific year. Thus, if one has to search in the city of Indianapolis, Indiana in the 1870 census, it would be useful to actually look in the 1870 Indianapolis city directory for the individual, record his street address, and then locate that street address on the 1871/2 ward map for Indianapolis. Finding a particular ward in an unindexed census by scanning the page headers, and then searching through that ward for a particular individual is much faster than having to look through an entire city for that same person. This research method can also be employed when we have reason to believe that an individual is in a particular census year in a larger city but does not show up in the index.
        Many ward maps can be found as supplemental pages in the front or back of numerous city directories. Most public libraries have city directories for the cities in which they are located as well as surrounding towns and villages. State libraries typically have very robust collections of city directories, either in print or on microfilm, for the cities within their respective states. Some ward maps can simply be found as part of institutional cartographic collections.
• Fire Insurance Maps - Some of the most interesting and perhaps unusual maps genealogists can use are fire insurance maps. Fire insurance maps can provide a variety of assistance to the genealogist. First, because of their detail, one can use them to determine which new house numbers correspond to particular old dwellings when a community or city re-numbers. One can also create a list of organizations in the area which may have been frequented by a potential ancestor. Such organizations may include churches, schools, laundries, groceries, department stores, lumber yards, and the like. By researching the organizational records of those entities, one may uncover new evidence and clues regarding a family’s past. And certainly urban growth and how that growth affected neighborhoods and regions of a particular city can be evidenced in these fire insurance maps.

We have images of old american atlases during the years 1750 to 1900. These are scanned from the original copies so you can see the states and counties as our ancestors saw them over a hundred years ago. Some maps years (not all) have cities, railroads, P.O. locations, township outlines and other features useful to the avid genealogist in North America.

All formats are pdf. Images are between 500k and 2 meg so allow a few moments to load if you are using a dial-up connection. It may take up to 6 months to complete the website for all years available so check back often for daily updates. See Disclaimer Below.

If you wish to purchase a reproduced copy of any maps you see here. [Disclaimer: All maps are free to use for your own genealogical purposes and may not be reproduced for resale or distribution]

• 1795 - Carey's American Atlas [100% complete]
• 1814 - Carey's General Atlas [100 %complete]
• 1822 - A Complete Historical, Chronological, And Geographical American Atlas [25% complete]
• 1836 New Universal Atlas [100% complete]
• 1845 - Morse's North American Atlas [100% complete]
• 1856 Colton's Atlas of the World [5% complete]
• 1866 - U.S General Land Office
• We will adding new maps soon, so check back later......

Links to rotating animated maps showing all the county boundry changes & all the county boundries for each census year for each year overlayed with past and present maps so you can see the changes in county boundries

United States Census

1790 Census, 1800 Census, 1810 Census, 1820 Census, 1830 Census, 1840 Census, 1850 Census, 1860 Census, 1870 Census, 1880 Census, 1890 Census, 1900 Census, 1910 Census, 1920 Census, 1930 Census

Scotland Census

1841 Census, 1851 Census, 1861 Census, 1871 Census, 1881 Census, 1891 Census, 1901 Census

England Census

1841 Census, 1851 Census, 1861 Census, 1871 Census, 1881 Census, 1891 Census, 1901 Census

Wales Census

1841 Census, 1851 Census, 1861 Census, 1871 Census, 1881 Census, 1891 Census, 1901 Census

Isle of Man Census

1841 Census, 1851 Census, 1861 Census, 1871 Census, 1881 Census, 1891 Census, 1901 Census

Channel Island Census

1841 Census, 1851 Census, 1861 Census, 1871 Census, 1881 Census, 1891 Census, 1901 Census

• U.S. 1643 - Present Maps
• U.S. 1643 -1699 Maps
• U.S. 1700 -1799 Maps
• U.S. 1800 -1899 Maps
• U.S. 1900 - Present Maps