Historic Maps, Overlays, etc.

[Armor9]

What resources have you guys found that are good for researching historic maps?

I have used Historic Map Works, Residential Genealogy ? and while they are decent, they are not great. There "basic" overlays are off by a decent amount. They sample "premium" one of Boston is spot on, but are they are all spot on with premium? I am not sure and don't want to blow $30 just a find out when the basic should be on.

What I have done is screenshot the map, then go to Home - Georeferencer and look for similar points to overlay the maps.

Here is one of the maps that I have done of my local area: Blackriver.jpg

What do you guys use? Any better tools out there?

Thanks!

 

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[Gare]

Truth1253: For your maping program do you suggest using the free version or do you pay for the premium ?
Thanks in advance

 

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[cooper1841]

Truth1253: For your maping program do you suggest using the free version or do you pay for the premium ?
Thanks in advance

I have been using the free version for 4 years and get everything I need

 

[Armor9]

Might want to look at an app called Maprika. They have it for PC (No MAC support at this time), Android, and iPad. Have done a couple of maps with it so far...pretty good from what I've seen so far.

Thanks, I'll give it a shot, looks interesting.

 

[Armor9]

I’ve heard of good things, but no Mac support for me is a stinker. I don’t mind doing it the harder way lol

Have an updated how to here with GE:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zL6peQU4vpY

Thanks for the tutorial, you really made it easy to understand how to do the overlays. Much appreciated!

 

[WIDirtFishing]

It sure does help. I live in St Tammany parish. We have a huge Lake..Lake Ponchatrain and have many rivers. Main river where the brought goods over from New Orleans across Lake Ponchatrain is Bogue Chitto River. I detected a sidewalk strip on the street they brought the oxen down and found a 1829 Spanish Mexican 8 Reales. Thank you for ANY advice gave and given MDDirt!

I’ll take a peek tomorrow. Workin tonight.

 

[WIDirtFishing]

My Historic Aerials or Historic map in my parish only goes back to the 1930. I’m trying to get to the 1809’s.

SO depending on the area there are some late 1800s topos here:
https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/viewer/#10/30.3112/-89.7274

Also check out here:
Louisiana Historical Maps

But if you want detailed old maps of your specific area, you're gonna have to research early cartographers and explorers for your area and maybe buy their journals and diaries they kept. Also local libraries will be good resources if you don't want to buy the books. That's what I did and bought just hte books i wanted to make notes in. A lot of those maps are not published to high resolution online.
Hope this helps!

 

[WIDirtFishing]

Or you can also find a certain Map atlas you want, like this one below:
County Map of the states of Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana Historical Atlas

And search the map maker name and year and see if you can find a free published copy online or with a historical society or something. That is my plan B for finding older maps

 

[Truth]

SO depending on the area there are some late 1800s topos here:
https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/viewer/#10/30.3112/-89.7274

Also check out here:
Louisiana Historical Maps

But if you want detailed old maps of your specific area, you're gonna have to research early cartographers and explorers for your area and maybe buy their journals and diaries they kept. Also local libraries will be good resources if you don't want to buy the books. That's what I did and bought just hte books i wanted to make notes in. A lot of those maps are not published to high resolution online.
Hope this helps!

You have helped me a lot. Thank you so much for taken time out your day to help me. It’s appreciated I want you to know that. I’m gonna get my research on! Lol Thanks again MNDF [emoji1317]

 

[Armor9]

This is my work flow.
1. Go to USGS' Topoview website. I download a KMZ file of the target area from the 1950s-70s. These eras (and newer) I've found to georeference in Google Earth the best. You could also just use the most recent topo, but the ones from the 50s-70s still sometimes show abandoned school houses, churches, and houses the new maps won't show.
2. Open Google Earth and open the KMZ file I'm working with.
3. I then go to Historic Aerials or Historic map works and get a screenshot of the target area.
4. I then load that screenshot as an overlay in Google Earth over the KMZ file. They're already georeferenced and usually I have to do a lot less work then. So all I do is match up the Plat lines and you're good to go.
So much easier than trying to use just an 1800s plat and overlay and try to match features and old roads, etc...

One thing you have going for you with you area are the "boxes" you showed in the video to help you line up on Google Earth, unfortunately not all state/counties do that apparently.

 

[WIDirtFishing]

One thing you have going for you with you area are the "boxes" you showed in the video to help you line up on Google Earth, unfortunately not all state/counties do that apparently.

Oh really?! They don’t do townships and ranges? Thought that was everywhere. No bueno.
You can still rock it out, use roads and old railroad tracks. It will be more difficult though.

 

[Armor9]

Oh really?! They don’t do townships and ranges? Thought that was everywhere. No bueno.
You can still rock it out, use roads and old railroad tracks. It will be more difficult though.

Yeah if you click on the Blackriver link in the OP you can see what I mean. My issue is I’m trying to line up the lower left side to find the buildings there but there are so few reference points and the road that goes N-S there no longer exists. Grrrr.

 

[WIDirtFishing]

Yeah if you click on the Blackriver link in the OP you can see what I mean. My issue is I’m trying to line up the lower left side to find the buildings there but there are so few reference points and the road that goes N-S there no longer exists. Grrrr.

Try Historic aerials and check out the area, see if the road is there. In my area the pics go back to the 30s and a lot of the older wagon roads still existed.
Then overlay the historic aerial and match the landscape then do the older road map over the aerial.
However... if you’re using topoview and the USGS map, you can just download the KMZ file and load it and it is already in the “correct” position. So i would try that actually. Download the oldest topo KMZ file, download it as a KMZ file, load it into GE, & then reference of off that

 

[Armor9]

Try Historic aerials and check out the area, see if the road is there. In my area the pics go back to the 30s and a lot of the older wagon roads still existed.
Then overlay the historic aerial and match the landscape then do the older road map over the aerial.
However... if you’re using topoview and the USGS map, you can just download the KMZ file and load it and it is already in the “correct” position. So i would try that actually. Download the oldest topo KMZ file, download it as a KMZ file, load it into GE, & then reference of off that

Yeah I checked historic aerials but they only go back to 1952 and the road is gone. The same thing for the topo, the earliest map is 1901. The problem there is the Blackriver map is from 1895. And the new road is on the 1901 topo map, but the old road is on the 1895 map. What are the odds right? There is a missing 6 years that for the love of god I cannot find!

 

[WIDirtFishing]

Yeah I checked historic aerials but they only go back to 1952 and the road is gone. The same thing for the topo, the earliest map is 1901. The problem there is the Blackriver map is from 1895. And the new road is on the 1901 topo map, but the old road is on the 1895 map. What are the odds right? There is a missing 6 years that for the love of god I cannot find!

See if your state has any GIS LiDAR mapping available.
Then check out this post:
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/minnesota/569560-why-i-love-lidar.html

Otherwise if you want to PM me the maps or something I can try a fee things and give it a shot