{"id":2212,"date":"2021-12-02T10:24:21","date_gmt":"2021-12-02T17:24:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/?p=2212"},"modified":"2021-12-02T10:24:21","modified_gmt":"2021-12-02T17:24:21","slug":"in-need-of-a-local-map","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/?p=2212","title":{"rendered":"In Need of a Local Map"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\/This week I wanted a map of the Nebraska area where my great-grandparents lived in the late 19th<\/sup> and early 20th<\/sup> centuries. They homesteaded northeast of Palisade in Hayes County. I needed something that would locate their farms and provide some surrounding context.\n<\/p>\n

My road atlas provided a political map with towns, roads, and county boundaries, but I was hoping for even more information. I remembered that I had once attended a seminar on using maps for genealogical research. Perhaps the instructor had offered some suggestions on where to look for the type of map I envisioned.\n<\/p>\n

I pulled out his handout from 2014 (yes, I saved it!). I saw that he had given us a list of major map websites.\n<\/p>\n

After seven years, I wondered how many of these could still be viable. I did recognize a few such as the USGS topographic maps, the David Rumsey map collection, and the Library of Congress map collection. I decided against starting with these.\n<\/p>\n

The topo maps on the USGS site show only topographic information. I find the Rumsey site and the LOC site cumbersome to use. It takes me a long time to find what I am looking for, and I have a hard time trying to print what I need. I wanted a faster result.\n<\/p>\n

The seminar handout listed another site that I decided to try. I was delighted to find that it still exists. It is called the National Map (http:\/\/nationalmap.gov<\/a>), and it is maintained by the United States Geological Survey. As a government service, it is free to use.\n<\/p>\n

The home page has a link to the National Map viewer. You can zoom in to any location in the United States. The resulting map of the Palisade, Nebraska area was exactly what I sought.\n<\/p>\n

My map includes so many things of interest:\n<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Political entities like the town of Palisade, its nearby highways, and the Burlington Northern railroad line,\n<\/li>\n
  2. Land survey section lines and numbers for the surrounding area,\n<\/li>\n
  3. Waterways like Frenchman Creek and the Culbertson Canal,\n<\/li>\n
  4. Places like the local cemetery, a dam, and a gravel pit,\n<\/li>\n
  5. Topography lines to help me understand the elevations of the land.\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    My map is wonderful, exactly what I needed. The National Map website is simple to navigate, and it is easy to print a map.\n<\/p>\n

    I plan to return to this site to find other locations from my family’s history. Maps provide a great way to visualize the places they lived.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This week I wanted a map of the Nebraska area where my great-grandparents lived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They homesteaded northeast of Palisade in Hayes County. I needed something that would locate their farms and provide some surrounding context. My road atlas provided a political map with towns, roads, and county […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-genealogy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2212"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2213,"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2212\/revisions\/2213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}