I am a sucker for maps. One can never look at too many maps, either when driving (sorry Tom Tom and you just aren’t always correct!) or doing geneal ogy and history research!
There is another new “player” on the market for map viewing – HistoryGeo. This is a mix of free and subscription access to maps.
What’s different about this site is that a large part of the map collection is based on the “Family Maps of xxxx” as produced by Arphax Publishing! These are those wonderful map books, by county, based on original land-ownership maps. To date such books have been published for 500 U.S.
Whenever I need to research a Federal Land Grant state, I quickly look and see if Arphax has published such a book – to be able to get some immediate context on “where” they lived, who their neighbors were and so much more really helps with the research. Many a time I learned from these maps that someone was living right at a county and/or state border and then lo and behold, I then also found them in records for the adjacent county and/or state!
This site is still in its infancy and so expect more and more to be added to it with time. If you are not familiar with this map series, check out the “free” maps section (you need to be registered to use – which is free). There are sample maps from Leake County Mississippi and Putnam County Indiana along with some other maps.
If you visit the site and play around with its viewer and maps, please let us know how it went!
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I registered and even signed up for a paid subscription, but so far I've not had a positive experience. I find it difficult to navigate and learn how to use the site and if I do find something useful there appears to be no way to print or download the image to use with my research. I love the Arphax books and was thrilled to see this site online, but I hope it improves substantially. The price for 6 mos was $54 -- a little high for such limited ability to work with the data. Perhaps after I spend a little more time figuring out how to use the site I will be more appreciative of what it offers.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your experience and I am sorry to hear about it. Please do make sure that you share your experiences with them -- we all expect value for our $.
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