Showing posts with label Genealogy Miscellanea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Genealogy Miscellanea. Show all posts

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Early Ohio Tax Records redux

If you do lots of work in Ohio before 1820, you may want to take advantage of the reissuing of Esther Weygandt Powell's Early Ohio Tax Records, which offers partial census substitutes for the largely missing 1800 and 1810 enumerations in that state. Seventy-five counties are covered. Details on the new book are at this Terre Haute, Indiana, newspaper site (thanks to Genealogy Miscellanea for the pointer).

If you need to consult this reference only occasionally, be sure to check for it on WorldCat after entering your zip code. It looks to me like it is fairly well distributed (at least around the Midwest) in mid-size libraries as well as the major genealogical ones -- you may live within driving distance of a copy!

Monday, February 4, 2008

Outline maps for counties

The inimitable Bill Bryson ("I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.") explains how important directions are to Midwesterners.

"Any story related by a Midwesterner will wander off at some point into a thicket of interior monologue along the lines of 'We were staying at a hotel that was eight blocks northeast of the state capitol building. Come to think of it, it was northwest. And I think it was probably more like nine blocks.'" (The Lost Continent, page 15)
In that spirit I was delighted to find Genealogy Miscellanea flagging the National Atlas website as an excellent source of free printable county maps for all states. It reminded me of another, more obscure site offering a variety of free maps: geology.com. For Illinois (and every other state AFAIK), geology.com offers

(1) county outlines (no names or towns) on a physical map of the state,
(2) county outlines with elevations (not much of that in Illinois),
(3) county outlines with major highways,
(4) county outlines with major highways and a good sprinkling of towns,
(5) county outlines and names with lakes and rivers,
(6) county outlines and names in color,
(7) county outlines and names and county seats in color.

Now, can anyone suggest a site that has a township map for each and every county in the US?