Marvelous Maps

Last week I listened to a presentation by Thomas MacEntee, a professional genealogist and lecturer, at the Family History Society of Arizona annual seminar.  One of the four workshops presented was on the topic of "Mapping Your Genealogy:  From A to Z and In-Between."

The following evening as I was planning our summer vacation to the Michigan area where the Goodale roots originated in the 1830's, I looked at a historical map of 1874 Lapeer County, Michigan and located  Mayfield Township in Lapeer County where Isaac Goodale  had purchased  property in 1837.  Looking on ancestry.com, the property was described as follows:  Section 29 located in Township 8, Range 10 E, 40 acres.  (1837 Lapeer US General Land Office Records, 1796-1907.  This property remained int the family for almost one hundred years.   I wanted to pinpoint the exact location of their property so that we could visit that area .

So with my newfound mapping expertise from the workshop, I spent some time, with the great help of my son, on google maps, using the present day map and comparing it to the 1874 map. The property was located by the Flint River and north of some railroad tracks.  On google maps we looked for the river and also looked for railroad tracks.  It was difficult to find these landmarks on the google maps which lined up with the old 1874 map.