What if you could use Google Earth to zoom in on the lives of your ancestors and see the streets where they lived, worked, and worshipped?

Well, you may never be able to do that, but thanks to a new collection of U.S. county land ownership atlases on Ancestry, you may get close.

I used the collection this week to find a detailed view of the area where my third great-grandfather David A. Jones lived after leaving Wales.

With 1,200 county atlases in the collection, chances are pretty good you’ll be able to make your own family connection. Just follow these directions.

FINDING A MAP
First, go to the collection: U.S. County Land Ownership Atlases, 1864–1918

Scroll to the bottom of the page; you’ll see a list of all the states that have atlases. Click on the state of your choice. (Note: You can also search the collection, but I found this the easiest way to quickly see which atlases were available for which states).

A list of counties with atlases appears for that state. Click on your county/atlas of interest.

You’ll see a digital image of the atlas. Use the forward and backward navigation tools to quickly browse through all the digitized images.

FINDING DAVID
According to the 1860, 1870, and 1880 censuses, my third great-grandfather, David A. Jones, settled in Scranton, Pennsylvania, after leaving Wales. Scranton was a part of both Luzerne and Lackawanna counties at different times, so to search this collection I clicked on the link for Pennsylvania, then scanned the list of counties looking for Luzerne and Lackawanna.

Lackawanna was not listed, but Luzerne was. I clicked on the link and found an atlas for Luzerne County that was published in 1873—the heyday of David’s life in Scranton.

Inside, I found a map of Scranton with all of the “wards,” or smaller town divisions, listed. There were detailed maps of each of the wards.

From the 1870 census I knew that David was living in ward 3, or the Providence borough of Scranton, so I flipped to that map (they were arranged alphabetically by town and then by wards). There it was—the place where David lived, complete with railroads, rivers, mines, major street names, and even houses and their owners.

 
Map of Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Map of ward 3 ( Providence) in Scranton.

ZOOMING IN FOR A CLOSE-UP
Using the zoom-in, zoom-out, and magnification tools, I was able to focus in on all the houses and see who lived where. I searched for David, but while I found several other “Joneses,” including a “D. H. Jones,” I didn’t find his name. Just my luck he probably lived in one of the twenty or so houses on the map not marked.

Nonetheless, now I have a very neat, very intimate look at the section of town he called home for more than twenty years.

 
Close-up of Providence map, showing names of each resident.

A PICTURE-PERFECT ENDING
Print a map off for a family history scrapbook—or save it to your shoebox to use in Ancestry Press later. (Ancestry Press is a new feature coming soon on Ancestry that will let you print customized books with all the records and information you have found on your ancestors.)

Rumor is that Ancestry may even make it possible to print high-quality images from this collection. If that happens, I think I’ll print one off and hang it in my cubicle at work—to remind me to keep searching for David and his family. Or, maybe I’ll frame it and hang it on my bedroom wall. According to Martha Stewart, maps are now in.

Jana Lloyd is editor of the Ancestry Monthly newsletter. She can be reached at AMUeditor@ancestry.com but cannot assist with personal research questions.