Researching Your Ancestors with David Rumsey Historical Maps

The David Rumsey Map Collection is one of the premier free resources for historical cartography. While it is widely known among map historians, most genealogists have only scratched the surface of what this site can do. It provides tools to visualize the exact world your ancestors lived in—land boundaries, migration routes, towns that no longer exist, renamed streets, and even home-by-home layouts in certain maps.

Rumsey’s platform is particularly powerful because:

• It includes high-resolution scans of rare maps not available elsewhere.
• Many maps show individual landowners, perfect for rural genealogical research.
• The Georeferencer overlays historical maps onto modern maps, allowing you to see precisely how landscapes changed.
• A broad selection covers railroads, canals, mines, towns, counties, and migration corridors, giving genealogists tools to understand why ancestors moved where they did.

This Quicksheet explains how the collection is organized, where genealogical clues appear, and which tools help you extract the most value.

Download the Quicksheet PDF

To obtain a five-page Quicksheet PDF of this information, download it by clicking on the Download button below: 

For all the previously published Quick Reference Guides, click on QuickSheets. 

Genealogy QuickSheets – Frequently Asked Questions