LibGuides: HIS 122: The U.S. Since 1865, Dr. Don Fisher: Maps

Online Map Collections

Digital Public Library of America
The DPLA includes resources from a variety of digital collections. You can view historic Niagara County maps through this link.
David Rumsey Historical Map Collection
The David Rumsey Historical Map Collection focuses on 16th through 21st century maps. The collection includes atlases, globes, school geographies, maritime charts, and a variety of separate maps including pocket, wall, children's and manuscript maps. The physical map collection is housed at the David Rumsey Map Center at Stanford University.
The georeferencer tool allows you to superimpose the historical maps over a current map.
Sanborn Maps
The Sanborn Map Company published detailed maps in the 19th and 20th centuries for fire insurance companies. These maps can be used study how neighborhoods and structures changed through time. The Library of Congress has a selection of maps online through this link.
Holland Land Company Maps
A collection of digitized HLC maps from the Daniel A. Reed Library at SUNY Fredonia. The maps date from the late 18th century to early 19th century. Most of the maps depict the Western New York, Northwestern Pennsylvania, and Eastern Seaboard regions.
Niagara County GIS Map
Interactive GIS map of Niagara County. Current map but includes historic aerial photograph overlays.
Library of Congress
Contains 17 million catalog records for books, serials, manuscripts, maps, music, recordings, images, and electronic resources in the Library of Congress collections.
Western New York County Atlases
Collection from SUNY Fredonia which includes: maps of the region, town histories, census information, biographies of prominent citizens, illustrations of notable buildings and residences, as well as illustrated town and city scenes. The collection dates from the 1860s and early 1880s.
Erie Canal Survey Maps
A collection of canal system survey maps, 1832-1843, from the New York State Archives.
Historic Map Works
A map collection with multiple layers yo see an area change through time. A Geocode feature allows you to compare historical and modern maps.

Land Records

Land records are a valuable source of genealogical and historical information. In addition to researching the history of a property, land records documenting the sale and ownership of land may cite the kinship between parties or provide other vital records information. Land records may infer the approximate date when a person moved to a town or when a building was erected. They may also include the residence of the buyer.

New York State Land Records, 1630-1975
This collection from Family Search contains land and property records from the New York Land Office and county courthouses. The records include land grants, patents, deeds, and mortgages.
General Land Office Records
Resource from the Bureau of Land Management which provides access to Federal land conveyance records for the Public Land States, including image access to more than five million Federal land title records issued between 1788 and the present. There are also images of survey plats and field notes, land status records, and control document index records.

Niagara County Community College. Henrietta G. Lewis Library. 3111 Saunders Settlement Rd., Sanborn, NY 14132 | 716-614-6786

HIS 122: The U.S. Since 1865, Dr. Don Fisher: Maps

Online Map Collections

Using Maps

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Land Records