Using Google Earth with old maps

KsHusker said:

That is a great article you wrote. Thank you for putting in the time and sharing it here. I use Google Earth but I didn't even know about the overlay feature. That's gonna come in handy. I've been looking at old railroad maps to look for ghost towns that aren't mentioned on any ghost town site. Found a few just in my area and gonna check em out soon. Is there any particular site where you found the maps to overlay that can be saved to my computer? All the ones I find want to charge me $25 or so. Just wondering if there's any free sites out there.

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Chuck Glenn said:

I've been using Google Earth combined with old maps to see how the the old map relates to the present day landscape. I made a little tutorial about how to use it here:

http://metaldetectorfun.com/metaldetectorfun_003.htm

One thing I forgot to add is that after you have your map lined up, you can print it from the save tab.

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Darter said:

Excellent write-up! Thanks for sharing it.

One extra tip: don't forget to take into account potential inaccuracies in old maps. I've found myself trying to fine-tune the scale and alignment in one spot for a long time, only to discover that it's way off in another, or to find that an old landmark I'm trying to locate wasn't exactly where the alignment suggests.

So the tip is, do quick and coarse scaling first, look around to see how the map as a whole lines up, then fine tune around the one area that you'll be hunting in.

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SandInToes said:

Hey Chuck -

I'm unable to get to your linked page. Can get to the http://metaldetectorfun.com main page, but even the link from there returns page not found...

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