Online Antique Map Resource w/Modern Day Overlay

Mozhoven

Full Member
Joined
Mar 9, 2012
Messages
171
Location
Middletown, CT
Hello All,

Not sure if this has been covered before, but I just found it and now seem to think that I can't live without it.

Some of you may or may not have discovered that many local libraries have high-resolution Beers maps available for free download (among others). This is a great resource and should be used. But, there is something better...

After searching for additional maps of a particular area online, I came across a site that uses these same publicly available maps and will overlay them with Google maps. You can control the opacity of each maps and "see" what used to be on a given property very easily.

Of course, it's not 100% accurate as these old maps weren't perfect, but it gives you a good idea. Anyway, it's a lot easier than doing it side-by-side!


http://www.historicmapworks.com/

1) Search for your town, choose desired map.

2) Select "Overlay This Map" , then click "Historic Earth Basic/Free" on right.

3) Navigate the map as you would on Google Maps, but control the transparency of the historic map with the Opacity toggle on right.

4) Toggle between the standard view, hybrid view, or Satellite photo view as needed.

*It is fully-functional for our purposes for free, but there is a paid membership feature as well. i don't know what it entails or how much better it is, but free is my favorite price...

Anyway, check it out. I think this should be a sticky in this forum. It's too valuable for researching.
 
It's been covered and this site has been shared a lot. It's a great resource to anyone in the hobby and is extremely addicting. If it wasn't for Map Works I wouldn't have any of my coppers or my oldest coin lol. Also Historic Aerials is a great site.
 
First time I've seen it.That's a pretty good site. I've only looked on it a few minutes and found 3 places I'm going to hit! Thanks for sharing.
 
Can these be printed? I have played around on the site but only with my laptop. Just wondering if its worth doing it all over on my desktop which has my printer.
 
Thanks much for this site!!!

I already added this website to my favorites bookmark. Thanks much for mentioning this map research site!!!! I will use the site to look for older map to overlay with modern map in my quest for older coins and relics.:yes:
 
sweet. forgot all about this site. I found a map with all of the lots/acreage people own near the farm. The map was from 1900 and it still showed my father in law's great grandfather's name.
So it for sure dates to mid-late 1800's ( i was told 1850's, but that was word of mouth). Nice to confirm that. Should be able to find some nice relics/stuffs up there (daughter and I found the original rows for crops way out in the woods and found either original small cabin/house or a root cellar near the rows)

thanks for bringing this link back to life
 
Glad I've reintroduced it to some, and brought it new to others. It's a great resource and I'm amazed I didn't know about it earlier.

Again, this should be a sticky here in the research forum.
 
www.historicaerials.com is another good site. I has actual aerial photography of many areas. You can overlay roads, and can select two years to compare with a slide feature, all from pull down tabs. The allignment might be a little off, but you can still tell where things were or where they have changed.

Mozhoven, just as an example, they have aerials of Middleton from 1934, 1963, and 2006. Check it out.
 
Longhair,

What a great site! I was just thinking how great it would be to see actual photos rather than maps. For example, I able to see that in 1934, my entire neighborhood was simple farmland. I even identified a small structure in the middle of a field that is now in my backyard. That explains why I've found so many implements in that particular area.

I only wish I could get rid of those watermarks! Thanks for the link, I hope others find it as useful as me. :D
 
Maybe thats what you get for joining
That, and joining gets rid of the watermarks.

If you want to print it w/o joining, you can do a screen capture, paste it into your photo editing software, and crop out all but what you want. The resolution isn always so great, but it beats nuthin'.
 
Great maps

I am working on an old church that I though was from 1930 and now see it on a map as an 1885 school house!!!!!
 
one thing i've noticed with the mapworks overlays is that they'll get ya close to the area but don't line up perfect(the homes can be off by 50-100 yds). i use both the mapworks site and also the historic aerials site. the historic aerials site also has topo maps on many locations. a cool feature with the historic aerials is if you click on "location" you can measure distances and also get gps cords.
 
Hey guys, historical map works to a detectorists is like peanut butter is to jelly(just not as tasty:lol:). It does cost a ungodly amount to join so is probably best viewed online. For the most part they are extremely accurate but their will be some discrepancies. One thing I do is check different years of maps of the same area and cross reference them to double check accuracy. Sometimes the overlay feature is a little off but for the most part it is extremely accurate. I would highly recommend buying a gps if you can afford it as it works wonders with these maps. I just pick a area on the old maps and find all the old school houses, churches,township halls etc. and use the overlay feature and find the nearest intersection and put it in my gps and then drive right to them. You can also enter coordinates in the gps(long.,latt.) and go that route also. Last saturday I did this while having my morning coffee and saturday afternoon drove to four sites and got permission for two schoolhouse/church sites. Hopefully this weekend I will hunt them. Hope this helps. HH.
 
Hey guys, historical map works to a detectorists is like peanut butter is to jelly(just not as tasty:lol:). It does cost a ungodly amount to join so is probably best viewed online. For the most part they are extremely accurate but their will be some discrepancies. One thing I do is check different years of maps of the same area and cross reference them to double check accuracy. Sometimes the overlay feature is a little off but for the most part it is extremely accurate. I would highly recommend buying a gps if you can afford it as it works wonders with these maps. I just pick a area on the old maps and find all the old school houses, churches,township halls etc. and use the overlay feature and find the nearest intersection and put it in my gps and then drive right to them. You can also enter coordinates in the gps(long.,latt.) and go that route also. Last saturday I did this while having my morning coffee and saturday afternoon drove to four sites and got permission for two schoolhouse/church sites. Hopefully this weekend I will hunt them. Hope this helps. HH.
Youre right about it being expensive. Thanks for the tips!
 
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