Putting Ancestors in Context
To understand the records we use to explore our ancestry we need to put them in context. By context I mean place, time and society. There is a lot of good material available for free on the web if you know where to look. Also some excellent commercially-available map material. Below are some of my favourites.
Place
Modern Maps
Streetmaps - I use Streetmaps all the time when trying to pin down small locations, like farms. Streetmaps is a commercial site, but it is free for non-commercial use (with adverts). It has the full range of Ordnance Survey maps, including both scales of the topographic series. The higher scale topographic series includes details like farm names.
Google Maps - I use Google Maps primarily for larger places particularly if I want to assess the relative position of locations. It is a commercial site but free for non-commercial use (though it undoubtedly collects data on your searches). It doesn’t have a lot of detail, so if you are looking for a single house or farm, forget it.
Google Earth - (download site) This is where I go to get accurate Lat/Long data for my Genealogy file. Also to judge whether an area has been redeveloped or is still as it was when my relatives were there. Plus you can create a pin map of ancestral locations. It’s free for non-commercial use but undoubtedly collect data on your searches and pinnings.
Historic Maps Online
National Library of Scotland Map Images - THE best source for old Ordnance Survey maps online and free for non-commercial use. It has many of the elements of a Geographic Information System (GIS) in its map comparison capabilities.
Old-Maps - This is a commercial venture started by the Ordnance Survey which is free to view, but you need to subscribe if you want to download anything. It has a rather idiosyncratic search and display system and you often see complaints about it misbehaving, but it has some interesting items not elsewhere available.
Old Maps Online - this is a free site with a esoteric collection of map images. If a map is out of copyright, it’s likely to be on this site. Good for pre-Ordnance Survey maps.
Historic Map Suppliers
These are commercial operations from which I’ve purchased paper maps because (a) there are times when you just have to look at the whole of a map in detail on a table rather than just a small section of a map on a screen and (b) they’ve done something different and worthwhile.
Cassini Maps - https://www.cassinimaps.co.uk/ - Cassini Maps (with a licence from the Ordnance Survey) have scanned three series of old Ordnance Survey Maps at the 1:50,000 level, stitched the images together, resized them, cut them up to match the modern OS Landranger series and printed them. You can also purchase digital copies for download. They do lovely boxed sets of the three maps for a given Landranger map number giving you a good idea of how an area has changed over the last 200 years, plus enabling you to pinpoint by comparison a location on a modern Landranger map.
The Godfrey Edition - Alan Godfrey has a licence to scan and reprint the Ordnance Survey Town Maps, plus the “inch to the mile” series. Very useful if your ancestor lived in a large town. Paper editions only, no downloads.
Modern Mapped Images
Geograph - What a site for a family historian from the “far side of the world”! Geograph started off as a community project sponsored by the Ordnance Survey with the aim of getting folks out and about and photographing every OS grid square of their local district. The Photographs are uploaded under a Creative Commons licence and so are free to download by family historians provided you acknowledge the creator when you use them. As you now have the option to download an image with the acknowledgment on it, this is dead easy. While the site is free to use, the funding for it is now limited and they are calling for donations. I’m happy to donate.
Context
Historical Information
Vision of Britain - Another great project which is now looking for public support (I’m happy to donate). In many ways this is the ultimate context website. Search for a place and find historical descriptions and maps and a record of the administrative units it came under past and present. It also has the official government reports on the Censuses from 1841 to 1911, plus statistical maps and more.
FamilySearch 1851 English Jurisdiction Map - Unfortunately this only covers England, but it is one of the most useful pages on FamilySearch. For many years England was managed via Church jurisdictions – Parishes, Deaneries, Deaconries, Archdeaconries, Peculiars, Bishoprics, Archbishoprics. The system wasn’t always neat and logical. The parishes weren’t neatly shaped and didn’t fit together like a hexagonal tiled floor (some were even split) and the Bishopric at the time registers were lodged may not be the one the parish is in. The Church jurisditions were a complex maze. When researching parish registers you need to know where to look, and this map tells you.
British History Online - A massive online archive of material relating to British history. There is a mix of free and subscription content. The free content includes many volumes of the Victoria County Histories (beloved of the Time Team historians as they can point you towards mediaeval material relating to an area). Great for detailed research of an area (including lost streets). I’ve not got beyond the mass of free content – yet. Subscribers help keep the free material free.
Internet Archive - Contains an archive of scanned, out-of-copyright books. This includes lots of material of genealogical interest (volumes of transcripts) but also old local histories written by antiquarians. The scans are OCRed into various formats, but not proofread so the pdfs are best. Among the items I’ve downloaded are Lewis’s Topographical Dictionaries (of England, Scotland, etc), Rye’s Scandivanian Names in Norfolk. plus many old local histories.
Good luck in understanding the lives and records of your ancestors
