on old maps family histories u s

On Old Maps, Family Histories - U. S. Geological Survey Offers Unusual Tools

for Genealogy

Paper: Washington Post, The (DC)

Title: On Old Maps, Family Histories - U.S. Geological Survey

Offers Unusual Tools for Genealogy

Author: Julie Sevrens Lyons

Date: August 12, 2007

Section: A Section

Page: A8

To track down the former site of her

great-great-great-grandfather's fruit orchard, Pamela Storm turned

to a seemingly unlikely source: the federal government's repository

of earthquake information.

Perusing one of the U.S. Geological Survey's historical topographic

maps and comparing it to a current city map, Storm and a friend

were able to find the site of Amory Gale Rich's onetime home and

orchard. They were in an industrial area that is now home to

Microsoft, Siemens and other high-tech companies.

"If genealogy is a history of families, it's reflected in the

history of land, which is recorded on maps," said Leslie Gordon, a

USGS spokeswoman. "There are a lot of genealogical tools out there,

but I think ours is a tool that will help you dig a little deeper."

Indeed, perhaps one of the best-kept secrets in genealogy is the

wealth of tools that the USGS has to offer armchair detectives

investigating their family roots. The tools include:

Tens of thousands of topographical maps dating as far back as the

late 1800s;

An easily searchable database listing more than 2 million places

named after families, including some schools and towns that no

longer exist; and

Old aerial photographs that may provide clues about abandoned

buildings, old railroad lines or other pertinent geographical

features.

"Maps are just like books. They've got a wealth of information in

them," said Joseph Kerski, an expert on geography education and a

former USGS employee. "People think about maps as road maps, but

there's a lot to mapping. There's old tax assessor maps. There's

old property evaluation maps and old flood maps."

The USGS has been producing maps since it was founded in 1879.

"In the Bay Area, people know us for earthquakes. In the rest of

the country, people are probably most familiar with our topographic

maps," Gordon said. "That has been our signature project since the

very beginning."

Such maps show the country in great detail, including fence lines,

homesteads, towns, rivers, mountains and cemeteries. The agency did

not complete its topographic, to-scale series of the country until

1990, Kerski said.

Other agency products include satellite imagery and maps of mines,

geology, earthquakes, floods and land use.

The USGS Geographic Names Information System database is a free

Internet feature that provides clues about who lived in certain

regions and when they were settled. Searching the database for a

family name will pull up information on rivers, cemeteries,

schools, villages and post offices containing that name. The

results include latitude and longitude coordinates to help

searchers find each spot on a map.

"People move. They migrate. But they have left their imprint on the

landscape through cemetery markers, through names on maps," Kerski

said.

Author: Julie Sevrens Lyons

Section: A Section

Page: A8

Dateline: SAN JOSE

Copyright 2007 The Washington Post