ask your elders.

[ink-a-alot]

Yall can laugh at me all you want but i like to go and talk to oldtimers around my town who have lived here all there life's. And it duzz pay off, I have learned more from old folks then any place else, like knowing how to tell an old home place by looking at the tree's growing around the land or old road beds, and crossing's.. ive been told about old story's of finds in the area i live in that they remeber from their childhood. old indian camp sites,ect... I know a old man in his 90s that was a surveyor and he could rember the old maps he would use on the land he was working on,, with his help i found a old jail from the 1800s and some old pioneer camps, and i havent checked it out yet, but he told me about an old Slave Camp near by.. im just saying asking older people can help more than old books or just hunting places that you think are good spots... people farmed more in the old days, and would plow up all sorts of things like arrowheads , pots.. money, all my old bottles that i have found came from old town dumps that most folks didnt know about.. ...

[47thelement]

I'm with you! I've been talking to a guy who has pointed me to 3 abandoned "amusement" parks. I use quotes because these places have been gone for over 70 years! There may have been 1 roller coaster. but mostly just carosels and picnic areas.

[trish76642]

I would never laugh at you ink-alot, the best knowledge in the world is sitting at the feet of the elderly.
I used to sit in the floor listening to my great Uncle, i could sit there for hours listening to him talk.

[ThTx]

Hey Ink - that is absolutely the best way to get good information. Anything the old folks say has a grain of pure gold in it.

[Roln99]

I totally agree!!!

The old folks have a treasure trove of information about the past and the history of the area surrounding them! If it weren't for them we wouldn't know as much as we do about the past with any degree of accuracy!

[PA John]

I was detecting this past Saturday in a local park. An older man was walking his dog and stopped by. He told me that I should trying in a small grove of trees behind a picnic table pavilion. He explained that when he was younger the pavilion was once a bandstand and people used to sit on this hill and listen to the music.

I went over and found my first buffalo nickel. It is very worn, can't even read the date. I will be going back to check this site out more thoroughly!!

[Seamuss]

I get most of my local history by talking to the old timers. They tell me things that their elders told that that never got written down. That is a real history lesson. Talk to them before their gone and take all that information with them.

[tjs5]

yep it is one of the best ways to find good places to hunt
i was going to vollunteer at an old folks home just because its a good thing to do and i think a couple might be able to tell me about some possible places to detect
its a win-win situation