Genealogy @ the Algonquin Area Public Library

Land & Geography

Illinois | United States | World

Illinois Resources

A Look at Cook
Ward and Enumeration District Boundaries 1870 – 1930 Censuses for Cook county.

Chicago Address Conversions
In 1909, the City of Chicago adopted a new street numbering system. Use this web site to convert a pre-1909 street address to a current number.

Encyclopedia of Chicago Maps
Free online maps of Chicago including Robinson's Atlas of the City of Chicago, an 1886 fire insurance map.

Federal Township Plats of Illinois (1804-1891)

United States

ePodunk.com
Includes information about every county in the U.S., profiles of more than 27,000 cities, towns, villages and hamlets, common misspellings of American place names, and now former place names of communities. The new database draws from hundreds of published sources to compile a list of prior post office names, railroad depots, plat names, informal place names, and merged communities.

Geographic Names Information System
The GNIS contains information about almost 2 million physical and cultural geographic features in the United States. Search by feature type within a geographic location. (e.g. churches in McHenry County, cemeteries in Cook county) Links to maps.

Land Survey Information System
The Land Survey Information System or LSIS is the official government Web site for the distribution of the Public Land Survey System (PLSS) of the United States. Click on Download Data then Place Names to look at detailed maps of towns.

American Memory Map Collections
Free online maps of cities and towns, military campaigns, railroads, and more provided by the Library of Congress.

Mapquest
Useful for a “quick and dirty” location search. Especially helpful for locating neighboring cities and counties.

Obtaining Street Name Changes in One Step
Use this online database to identify street name changes.

US GenWeb
Useful for determining historical county boundaries.

World

Atlas of Canada
This web site from the Natural Resources Canada includes historical maps, as well as today's political divisions, and topographic features.

Canadian Geographical Names Service
This database of over 350,000 records provides information about Canada's geographical names. Use this resource to identify and locate places in Canada.

David Rumsey Map Collection
A free collection of over 11,000 maps from the collection of David Rumsey. The collection features 18th and 19th century North and South America maps, as well as historic maps of the World, Europe, Asia and Africa.

Multimap
Similar to Mapquest with a focus on Europe and Canada.

Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection
Excellent source for historical and current maps from around the world.

Rootsweb Localities Message Boards
Subscribe to message boards for the counties and countries you are researching. Connect with other genealogists doing similar research. Ask others for help.