This morning Thomas Jones led us through last night’s homework assignment. Rick Sayre discussed “Rural and Urban Map Strategies: Analysis, Interpretation, and Correlation.” He talked about how to critically evaluate a map and correlate it with other information.  David Rumsey’s site has 29,000 maps online deliberately selected and scanned for use.  To use DeedMapper, we [...]

Did your ancestor live in the wild west or the California gold country and you cannot find the town on a current map? It might be a ghost town but there is hope for you to still find the records from that town. There are three types of ghost towns today: 1.  The town may [...]

Have you tried to find a town where you ancestor lived and it’s not on any maps today?  It may be a drowned town! Let me start with a story as an example: Lucy Frye lived in Petersburg, Calaveras county, in the California gold country during the 1850s.  The story passed down is that she [...]

Years ago I headed to Boston in search of my great-grandfather, Thomas Francis Farrell.  I was going to walk where he walked.  I was going to take pictures of the place he lived.  I EVEN had found the address where he had lived! I was so excited.   It was going to be perfect. I flew [...]

Have you tried to find your family at a particular location in a county record and didn’t find him? As states became settled and more populated, counties divided and subdivided until they became the boundaries we have today. Your ancestor may have lived in the same spot all his life, yet his records would be [...]