Maps - How They Can Help A Researcher As A Source

Source - www.chartiers.com/pages-new/maps.html
Maps are wonderful and important resources for the genealogist. Are you asking yourself, "Why would I need a map of Washington Co., PA or anywhere else for that matter?

  • To locate the name of a community in which your ancestors reportedly lived.
  • To help understand the shape, size, and location of your ancestor’s land patent.
  • To determine the route your ancestor might have taken between their house of worship, to attend school, the market, and their farm.
  • To find out who your ancestor’s neighbors might have been. Those neighbors may end up being relatives.
  • To get a sense of the population and ize of Washington Co. (or any particular area) at various time frames.
  • To figure out what roll of census microfilm to order and examine

Maps are a concrete and fairly accurate representation of the way the world was at a given point in time, and therefore they help ground us in the reality of our ancestor’s lives. This is very useful for genealogists, since we so often have to "fill in the blanks" and consequently run the risk of making too much up.

Different maps may best meet the varying needs outlined above, as you will find out when you study and begin using maps as part of your research.

Panoramic maps of cities, for example in Washington Co., PA are three-dimensional and can include renderings of buildings, many of them named. The web site below is part of the Library of Congress American Memory Map Collection. http://www.chartiers.com/ you can search various county maps of PA including Washington County and surrounding areas.

Early Landowners of Pennsylvania: Atlas of Township Warrantee Maps of Washington County, PA + CD and Maps available, by Sharon MacInnes, Ph.D. - This atlas brings to light one of the most invaluable new tools to researchers of western PA. Township Warrantee Maps of tracts, and then the Commonwealth of PA., sold to the first settlers of Washington County, PA. The atlas contains images of the original large maps housed at the Pennsylvania Archives in Harrisburg. These maps are available for Fayette County, PA. and are currently being compiled for Greene County, PA. Sharon plans to complete a series of books & CD’s including all western Pennsylvania Counties.
Here is the ordering information currently available:
Ancestor Tracks, 5810 Kingstowne Center, Suite 120, Alexandria, VA. 22315 or go to - AncestorTracks.com

  1. Item No. PB27, Early Landowners Atlas Washington Co., PA, 383 pp. + CD of atlas maps
  2. Item No. PC08, Early Landowners Atlas Fayette Co., PA, 372 pp. + CD of atlas maps.
  3. Item No. PS08, Warrantee Maps of Greene Co., PA (projected date of publication, Aug 2005).
  4. Item No. PV79, Early Landowners of PA. Land tracts Transferred from VA to PA Jurisdiction 1779 – 1780, 217 pp. + index.
  5. Item No. PA27, Caldwell’s Illustrated Historical Atlas of Washington Co., PA (pdf format on CD)
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