Historic Map Works Overlay

[grasshopper]

I have used this site before...but it seems that they have recently added somethign that could be of some use. When I found my town's map from 1866, I clicked on it and it automatically came up with an overlay that was synched with google maps! you can make the overlay more/less transparent and it will correlate exactly with the current satellite imagery. Check it out and see if your city/town is on here! Great tool for finding old houses/foundations.

www.historicmapworks.com

[Smee]

With a little bit of work, you can do the same thing yourself.

Get the old map image, import to Google Earth, align several known points on both, and you can then find the points you are looking for with your GPS.

I use it to locate everything from old stage coach roads to old Indian Trails. It's called "Groundtruthing" when you combine it with your GPS to insure accuracy.

[grasshopper]

Yeah I've tried that...can get annoying though. What's better than having someone do something for you?

[Smee]

Yeah, but when I mention old maps it usually involves scanning it in because no one has done that.

For instance, I've been working on the old Wheeler Trace in southeast Arkansas. I have only found two maps which contain its full length. Only found those through library sources . . . so for those, it actually involves a high resolution digital camera to capture the image and then import it into Google Earth after cropping in Gimp.