Check them small town libraries!

[Lowbatts]

Went to a small town library in rural No. Cent Illinois today to check and see what old local info was available for this falls post harvest huting season.
Asked the elderly woman there if she had any old maps/atlases of the area and she was unsure, so she showed me the "history room" were they keep all the old local things that people send thier way from estates, etc. She told me to have a look around and see if I could find anything. I found four of those large old picture atalses being used to prop up some ugly old thing-a-mabob. From 1871, 1875, 1882 and 1905 these books are crucial to determining where the ghost towns were around there.

Like many other places a lot of the towns around there relocated when the railroads came through and these maps show the migration of these towns from the now plowed under fields and overgrown riverbanks to the existing villages. Old churches and schools are prominently displayed in icon form on these maps and now extinct roads can be seen. Cross reference with current aerial and satellite photos can usually get you right to the spots with some potential.

I informed her I would be back on Saturday to take photos of some of these with my dig camera as their copying capability was somewhat limited and she expressed a willingness to help in any manner!

Unfortunately, there were no X's on the maps.... Not yet!

 

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[dodgers11]

You are exactly right about the local libraries. I visit all of them in my county. Being a small county it's not that difficult, but it's amazing what you find out and some things that you never even knew!! As to the last comment you made about not finding any X's, well actually you did! You have more places to hunt that you would have probably never hunted.

 

[Lowbatts]

I would think the old maps in Tennessee would probably be even more interesting than up here in No. Il. Have you found any of the old trail maps by the early pioneers in your searches? I would like to find some of the old English or even French maps if any are known. Especially of interest would be the area of Western Tennessee as I have a lineage connected there that goes back to the French and English settlement periods.

 

[dodgers11]

I've found a lot of information from the local historians and historical societies. I have a pretty good collection of old maps that date in the mid 1800's to the late 1800's that show all the area settlements, churches, stables, mills, river crossings, etc. etc. etc. To get some more information and pictures of the areas that your trying to find in Tennessee, try this website. www.tngenweb.org

 

[extractor]

bump

 

[Knightwalker]

Those big books are old plat books. I'm not to sure how accurate they are. I think a lot more then the ones they print today. They are a good way to find old home sites besides the old schools and churches. I check them and then bring up the county map from the local business association and see if they are still there, fields or wooded area. I can't wait till thaw and get out and check on some of these.
HH in 2010

 

[River Rat]

Those libraries have a wealth of information on their shelves. Historical societies seem to have a lot of book published. Normally you will find more at the libraries than on the www.

RR

 

[twistidd]

Wow, talk about resurrecting an ancient post! An oldie, but a goodie, from my ol' buddy Lowbatts.

Joe

 

[extractor]

Wow, talk about resurrecting an ancient post! An oldie, but a goodie, from my ol' buddy Lowbatts.

Joe

Yup, I thought it was worth a Bump

 

[surprman]

Once you have a digital picture of an old map, use it with the overlay feature on Google Earth. You can adjust the transparency of the overlayed image and re-size it to match the current-day reference points (like roads, streams etc on old and new maps). From that, you can then get lat/long coordinates and a GPS will take you right where you want to go. I have done this for MDing and ice fishing (with copied depth charts). Works great.

Surprman