Re: Maps ? You've got to be kidding.
Knowing the local area and starting with historical maps and local history is a good start for finding any treasure. But there are many many kinds of maps and they all serve a different purpose. What maps you use depends on where you are planning to hunt and what you are planning to hunt. Many on the board go to Google earth, and that is all good and fun and sometimes helpful (but I will say I have caught Google cheating and "painting in" what they didn't really capture on camera). NASA has been giving them lessons in the art of land/water touch-ups.
Okay, we all know about Google, and many Terra Server. There are aerial maps, satellite maps, topography maps...the historical maps...
but there are also many kinds of government maps, military maps, nautical maps, surveying maps.....industry maps of various sorts.
Don't limit yourself and don't be too lazy. You are going to need surgery on that right shoulder spending lots of wasted time swinging that MD. You can get lucky and find that random coin or 2, but not all beaches are going to yield everything if you are a coastal TH.
I also like to hunt "nice rocks". Now that is a area of research with some very different dynamics.
Think "Dynamics" of any environmental area you are in.
Historical Data: Each and every word you read can have great importance. Americans like to "gliss" quickly over their reading material and they miss important details. It is just like law. And many attorneys do not know this by the way, judges too.
When a law is legislated, each and every single word is important to the proper meaning and interpretation. A really good attorney or appeals or federal attorney will use this to their advantage on argument. Very helpful especially when judges are trying to "legislate from the bench" (Also, get the committee notes that were used by the legislature, as they will give you a better scope on the intent of the law)
A woman once taught me that if I look at a sentence or a paragraph and cannot stop and give a meaning, a definition for each and every word then I truly do not understand what I am reading. Wow, what a thought huh ? (Try that sometime) And that can be true in many cases, though not all.
So when you are reading Historical Data, are you capturing each word in it's fullest sense ? If you are reading something more ancient such as the "Archives of the Indies" in the "Old Spanish" do you understand the culture and the "time period" enough to know how to properly interpret what you are reading? The same is true of any archaeological find.
We cannot always know all things from the past, but that is where we can boost our understanding, by reading each word carefully and really thinking about what is being said.
Now gov't documents can be very wordy as can be those from academia. I skim through these for key points, and concentrate on the area that really has something to say. But sometimes in all that "bull" there is just "one word" that has so much significance it can totally change the picture of the entire document. I find this often the case on "global", UN and EU related material. Your definition of a word may not be their definition and you better have more background to understand.
Don't overlook other historical resources. Bits and pieces of important information to your search can be present in other subject matters. Not everything is going to shout "This is the spot to find the 1715 fleet ship "The Capitana !"
Or for Arkansas diamonds "Go to the Crater of Diamonds State Park" !(Did you know there are actually 6 known diamond craters in Murfreesboro, Arkansas ? And did you know diamonds have also been found in adjacent counties ?) bet you didn't.
One of my best information sources for Arkansas Diamonds was actually some corporate documents from some mineral investing companies that were not prolific in their existence. Also there were some interesting state documents from the Arkansas Geological Survey.
With hard work and patience I also located a map showing 5 civil war campsites, 4 of them not well known at all, and one of them partly known of. It was just a little handdrawn map in a historical book. I am not trying to be self serving or brag here, but trying to encourage you to do more in the area of research. Go to the library historical book section. Just take care not to damage the materials. (And don't steal them)
Nothing is more disappointing than wasting a day finding nothing. And it is going to happen to the best researched persons as well because Treasure can be elusive. But it's more fun to know more and to understand the history and more convenient to narrow down the search. Unless of course, you reallly like getting your arm sore and tired.
I was so excited last night when I posted. So many pieces of information have come my way this last week. I'll give you an example.
Located some "maps" won't tell you the source or what type, however, at first glance I thought "what am I looking at...is it such and such ?" But sitting here staring at it, going away, looking at something else then coming back, I realized what I was seeing were "ballast stones" and their scatter pattern. Now it was just this "scatter pattern" that I was interested in. They were from 2 wreck sites that are already being salvaged, one off of Hutchinson Island, and the other off of another area. My interest was the scatter pattern to see where I could maximize an MD hunt to my advantage.
Same thing with alluvial deposits for gold and gems. Look for "wash" patterns, land erosion patterns, sand or earth shifts, the direction of hill or mountain formation....all important details to improve the odds of finding something.
The Spanish were very skilled at knowing what type of environmental clues to look for. The Spanish used to have a small silver mine in Searcy, Arkansas. If you have even been there you would never have suspected silver in that area. But they knew how to find it. Sure it always pays to have a shortcut method, like some Indian having some gold ornaments or something, but the Spanish understood "environment", and made many maps to prove it.
So utilize other maps of other types in your search.
itmaiden
the first one I found was the 1778 french language "copy" hanging on the wall of fernandina ,florida museum over all those years it hung there --- no one ever looked closely and noticed the french word for "shipwreck" on it but me 
