Old Maps

 I have read articles in genealogy magazines about old maps and how they can be helpful in finding the area where ancestors lived, especially in rural, farming areas. There were several companies that produced them.  One of the more well known companies was Sanborn, and these were detailed maps of U.S. cities in the 1800s and 1900s.  Sanborn maps were created to allow fire insurance companies to assess their total liability in urbanized areas of the U.S, according to Wikipedia.  Honestly, I have never used these before, mainly because most of my family (both sides) wound up living in larger cities with actual street addresses, like Jersey City NJ, Scranton PA, and Brooklyn NY.  I didn’t need a map to find a street address  in a large city, but when it comes to rural area like Sandford, NY and Susquehanna, PA, I need more help than a GPS program can give me.

One of the other companies that created maps was F. W. Beers.  These maps show the general topography of the area, with roads, town names, bodies of water, railways, etc....  These maps can also have property owners/residents names on them, which is the part I like.  

I was actually asking about the Beers maps while at the court house, but they did not have any.  I didn't think of Google until I got home - I guess I really am getting old.  When I got home to New Jersey I thought of Googling old maps of Susquehanna County PA, and I found a map from 1872.

If you look in the blue area of the map you can see M. Reilly in the top left corner, and down to the right, you can see E Stack.

Now you can see the resident's names located on the map.  The reason that I used these two names is that Michael Reilly (my great great grandfather) has a son Thomas, and in 1892 he will marry Edward Stack's daughter, Mary Ann.  I guess that single men and single women were far and few between and this visual aid shows that to some degree.  This scenario has repeated itself  several times in my previous generations with co-workers and boarders, and has since mutated into computer dating and such. 

But back in the day it was a realtor’s dream: location, location, location.