Category: Research Resources

1807 Gazetteer of Delaware and Maryland Helps Genealogists and Local History Researchers

Geographical description of Maryland and Delaware
Joseph Scott’s Geographical Description of the State of Maryland and Delaware. Source: Hathi Trust via the Digital Public Library of America

In the decades before state directories and similar resources appeared, there were gazetteers or geographical dictionaries.  These valuable titles, many over 200 years old, focused on geography as they examined an area in detail, presenting information about a community, its landscape, political economy, business enterprise, population, and natural resources.

Today genealogists and local historians will find these works helpful as they offer detailed insights into a county, town, or village. Since hard-to-find details, such as social statistics, are contained in the works, I often consult the volumes when trying to understand the changes that have taken place in an area over the centuries.

In this region, “A Geographical Description of the States of Maryland and Delaware,” published by Joseph Scott in 1807, is helpful.   As its nearly 200 pages focus on this region, it contains a large amount of productive information.  In addition to details on most of the towns and villages of any size on Delmarva, there is lots of text discussing the states and each county.

This title was once hard to access.  I purchased one from an antiquarian bookstore in New England decades ago to have it instantly available for my needs.  Before that, I had to travel to a distant special collections library.

But now, thanks to the Digital Public Library of America and other public domain e-content providers, we all have instant access to this and many more titles.

Click here to go to the Digital Public Library of America’s catalog item for this product.

page examines geography and population of Delaware
Delaware Social Statistics showing the population in 1800 by hundred for free persons and slaves, along with the start of the description of New Castle. Source: Hathi Trust, via the Digital Public Library of America
Delaware map in Joseph Scott's 1807 Geographical Description of Maryland and Delaware
The Delaware map in Joseph Scott’s 1807 Geographical Description of Maryland and Delaware: Source: Hathi Trust via the Digital Public Library of America

Explorer Makes Access to USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection Easy

A screen grab of the 1904 map showing Newport. Notice the timeline at the bottom showing other available products.
A screen grab of the 1904 map showing Newport. Notice the timeline at the bottom showing other available products.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and Esri, a geographic information technology company, have partnered to make the enormous collection of the Survey’s map readily available to everyone.  While these resources have been downloadable on the Internet since September 2011, this new, user-friendly website provides convenient access to the “Historical Topographic Map Collection.”

This new interface or explorer is a significant improvement over the original system, which was more complicated.  The explorer brings to life more than 178,000 maps from 1884 to 2006, allowing users to easily access geo-referenced images, which can also be used in web mapping applications.  The timeline allows visitors to easily explore the collection by place, time, and scale, and the sheets are easily downloaded.

Use of the landing page is simple.  Visitors enter the desired location in a query box, and once you click on the map a convenient timeline comes up, showing the survey for that place.  The user is able to visual see the products that were produced over time and move along the line to see the changes over time.

Check this out, as you will find lots to help with your local and family history research

CLICK HERE TO VIEW A BRIEF VIDEO DEMONSTRATING THE USE OF THE EXPLORE

 

 

 

Online Historic Aerial Maps Aid Delaware Researchers

Aerial maps of Delaware, spanning from 1937 to the present, are available in an online digital archives maintained by the Delaware Environmental Monitoring and Analysis Center.  Initially captured during flights flown over the region, the photography shows what the region looked like at various points.  Typically termed orthophotography once the data has been geocorrected, the pictures were used in local map making.

This virtual service is helpful to local history researchers and genealogists.  It allows investigators to easily acquire detailed visual representations showing the nature of development of parcels for a period of over a century, which is a valuable tool for finding old homes, cemeteries, roads, streams and much more.  It is also a strong source for studying the evolution of communities and rural areas throughout the 20th century.

Simply by clicking the mouse on the desired sector of the map, the virtual visitor has access to aerial images.  They show how the land appeared in 1937, 1954, 1961, 1968, 1992, 1997, 2002, 2007, and 2010

Here is the link to the homepage with instructions.

hartly 1968
Part of the aerial map of Hartly, Delaware, 1968. Source: The Delaware Environmental Monitoring and Analysis Center

Eastern Shore of Virginia Newspapers Online

Special collections institutions continue to digitize newspaper collections rapidly, making them openly available to researchers. These valuable resources aid genealogists, local historians, and public scholars in digging into the past. On those old pages are many print columns about the local community and the people.

While doing fieldwork on Lower Delmarva, I recently needed access to Eastern Shore of Virginia newspapers.  Specifically, I wanted the Peninsula Enterprise, an Accomac, Northampton County, VA weekly.  My first step, a Google query took, me to the Library of Virginia, which has created word searchable, e-copies of this serial, spanning the years 1881 to 1910.

The site has plenty of additional titles, as “this collection contains 48,934 issues comprising over 300,000 pages.  In addition to the online resource, the Library of Virginia offers an array of sources for researching newspapers from its broad collection of over 3,000 titles.”

“The Virginian Newspaper Project, established in 1993, has worked to locate, describe, inventory, preserve and provide public access to United States imprints housed thorough out the commonwealth,” according to the website.

Click here to go to the Virginia newspaper page.   Click here for other digital resources available from the Library.

“The Library is one of the oldest agencies of Virginia government, founded in 1823 to preserve and provide access to the state’s incomparable printed and manuscript holdings.”

peinsula enterprise, eastern shore of Virginia newspaper.
The Peninsula Enterprise, Accomac, Northampton County, VA, a Virginia newspaper published on the Eastern Shore